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THE SELF AND NATURE 



BY 

DeWITT H; PARKER 

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE 
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 




BS' EEL 



CAMBRIDGE 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 

Oxford University Press 

I917 



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COPYRIGHT, 191 7 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 



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SEP 20 1917 


©CI.A473618 


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TO 
MY MOTHER 



FOREWORD 

THE task of metaphysics, as I conceive it, is twofold. 
Accepting experience as a fragment of reality which is 
unimpeachably given to us, metaphysics undertakes first, to 
analyze and describe its omnipresent aspects and funda- 
mental structure: its relation to the self, to the body, to 
nature, to knowledge; its changefulness; its spatiality; the 
spontaneity and causal determination of its elements; its 
relatedness. This is the more certain part of the study, 
where truth will reward any one who examines attentively 
and without prejudice, and who constructs with skill and 
fidelity the concepts which he uses to describe what he finds. 
But metaphysics has a second, a synthetic task: to project 
a total vision of the world. By following along the lines of 
the outward going relations of given experience, the philos- 
opher seeks to discover the whole of which it is a part. As 
necessary materials for this purpose, he has to use the larger 
facts and broader generalizations of science, interpreting 
them, however, in the light of his analysis of experience. 
Hence, despite this dependence, metaphysics differs funda- 
mentally from science in being radically empirical and criti- 
cal, and in passing from the part to the whole. This is the 
less certain portion of the study, because it requires a freer 
use of hypothesis; yet the extension of experience which it 
demands is no different in kind or certainty, I believe, from 



VI FOREWORD 

that involved in any special science where the facts are not 
all open to inspection. 

The method of metaphysics is, therefore, radical empiri- 
cism extended through the imagination. The source of all 
of our knowledge of reality is given experience — without 
a careful analysis of this, there can be no sound metaphysics. 
There are, however, within given experience itself motives 
for going beyond it, and for this, the use of the imagination 
is not only legitimate, but necessary. Yet the meaning and 
value of every concept employed either in the description of 
given experience or in its imaginative extension is literally 
equivalent to the images and concrete experiences from 
which it has been derived or into which it might lead. 

In the present work I aim to study in a direct and simple 
fashion the great problems of metaphysical philosophy so 
conceived. Each of these problems receives independent 
treatment in a separate chapter, yet the work is, I believe, a 
consistent and fairly complete whole. The doctrine of the 
nature and unity of mind expounded in the early chapters, 
as the reader will discover, determines the point of view of 
the entire book. 

Anybody familiar with the history and recent literature 
of philosophy will recognize how large a debt I owe both to 
the living and the dead. For the sake of simplicity and con- 
tinuity of writing I have not made all the acknowledgments 
which I might have made in the body of my text. I wish 
therefore to make my chief acknowledgments here at the 
outset. Although I do not think that I am in total agree- 
ment with him anywhere, I am throughout indebted to 



FOREWORD Vll 

James for the radically empirical, dramatic conception of 
the universe which I accept. In the early chapters my 
inspiration for the view that sensations are a real part of the 
system of the physical world has been drawn chiefly from 
Berkeley and Mach and Bergson; in the chapter on Causal- 
ity, for the derivation of law from spontaneity, I am directly 
dependent on Charles Peirce; my emotional and moral 
attitude towards nature, as expressed in the Conclusion, if 
not the same as Santayana's, is at least, I feel sure, colored 
by the Life of Reason and the personal teaching of its 
author. Although disagreeing with them on many topics, 
I am deeply indebted to my teachers Royce and Perry, 
and to Russell and Bradley and Ward for my method of 
approach at several points and for abundant suggestions. 
Finally, to my colleague and chief, Wenley, I owe much 
for inspiration and encouragement during the writing of the 
book. 

Despite all these acknowledgments, a large part, of my 
work is, I believe, original. There is something especially 
new, I think, in my treatment of personal identity and the 
relation of the self to nature. The work is, at all events, a 
first-hand attempt to think through the great problems of 
philosophy. It has been for me a personal, an unavoidable 
quest, an intellectual adventure, upon which I now invite 
the reader to follow me. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Self and the Mind 3 

II. Personal Identity 28 

III. The Metaphysics of Perception 53 

IV. The Relation between Mind and Body 72 

V. Time 96 

VI. Causality 129 

VII. Space 157 

VIII. The Nature of Knowledge and the Metaphysical 

Status of Universals 176 

IX. The Theory of Relations 212 

X. The Unity of Minds 274 

XL Conclusion 299 



THE SELF AND NATURE 



CHAPTER I 

THE SELF AND THE MIND 

IN the intellectual adventure which lies before us we 
might start anywhere; but let us begin at the point 
nearest, — with ourselves. 

What is the self ? Which of all the many things which I 
can find or know can I identify as myself ? 

I certainly am not, for example, this gray and shape of 
table, this color and odor of fruit, this sound of typewriter. 
I am, to be sure, very intimately bound up in some way 
with these things; they are very close to me; yet they are 
not me. On the other hand, among the things which I can 
find, there are some which seem to be unquestionably a part 
of me : my interest in this search, the pleasure in the search 
as I proceed with it, the various thoughts and opinions 
which I find and somehow own or hold with reference to it. 
If,- at the moment, I were to suppose these things not to 
exist, I should be at a loss to find anything left of myself. 
And when I look back over my past and ask myself what I 
have meant to myself, I find that I have always meant 
certain instincts, purposes, choices; certain satisfactions 
and dissatisfactions; and certain opinions, thoughts, mem- 
ories. Let us call all these things activities. 

We cannot doubt that the activities are an essential part 
of the self; but are they the whole self ? For there are 
certain things which I stumble upon when I search for the 



4 THE SELF AND NATURE 

self about which the question may fairly be raised whether 
they belong to the self or not. They are often attributed 
to it. They are such things as strains in the joints and 
muscles when I move, beatings of heart and shivering when 
I am afraid, tensions in the forehead and neck when I 
think — in fact all that part of existence which I call my 
body, especially when my activities have results there. 
Another set of things which seem to be myself are my 
images. These, too, accompany most, if not all, of my 
activities. My strivings are always inwrought with strains; 
my desires are always hugging some image of shape and 
color; my pleasures and pains are penetrated with organic 
pressures and touches; my thoughts and memories are 
constantly interwoven with pictures of their objects. And 
this intimate relation of all these doubtful things to the 
activities is, I think, the ground of our identification of 
them with the self. In themselves, they do not belong to 
the self; but because of their inseparable connection with it, 
they are effectively a part of it. 

The result of our search for the self was the discovery of 
the activities. Besides these, we came upon certain things 
which are so closely knit into the activities that the latter 
never exist separate from them. Hence they, too, while 
strictly not the self, may nevertheless be called by its name. 
Then there were the other things which we found in our 
search, colors and shapes and sounds, with which the self is 
never confused because never in so intimate a connection. 
But even they, although separable, are nevertheless bound 
tight to it. The mere fact that I could find them is evidence 



THE SELF AND THE MIND 5 

of this tie. I find myself connected with all found things in 
a way which does not exist between me and things which I 
do not find. I find, of course, thoughts of these latter 
things, a thought of my reader and of New York, for 
example; but what these thoughts mean, the things them- 
selves, I do not find. The things which I both mean and 
can find — the blue of sky and sound of typewriter, for 
example — are all in contact with one another and with 
the self, with the thought that means and the pleasure 
that is taken in them; but between the things which I 
mean and cannot now find and those which I do find there 
is no such contact. The blue of sky and as much of the 
typewriter as I see make a whole with my feelings and 
desires from which the part of the typewriter which I do not 
see and my reader and London are excluded. There is, of 
course, a connection between what I see of the typewriter 
and what I do not see; but this connection is not itself seen. 
There is, therefore, a contact of the self with things which 
are no part of it; with these it makes a whole from which all 
things which it cannot at the moment find are excluded. 
Let us call this whole of things findable a mind or conscious- 
ness. This whole is often called a self, but improperly; for 
the self, as we have seen, is only one part of it. Let us call 
everything in such a whole which is not self, content. Since 
the relation between the two parts of the mind is so inti- 
mate, it is not surprising that the distinction between them 
has not always been recognized. I never find myself without 
some contact with content, and, since I cannot find anything 
without coming into contact with it and so making a whole 



6 THE SELF AND NATURE 

out of it and myself, I never can find any content separate 
from the self. 

The account of the self which we have given may be 
deemed inadequate for several reasons. 

First, one may object that we have described the " me," 
the objective self, not the " I " or true subject. Our sup- 
position that we could find the self at all may be declared 
false. How, it is often said, can I find myself; how can the 
subject become its own object? And if somehow the subject 
can become its own object and so be found by itself, perhaps 
its mode of discovery and of knowledge must be different 
from the mode of discovery and of knowledge of other 
things; it may be a mistake to suppose that we can search 
for the self, as we have done, just as we should search for 
other things. 

The basis of this objection is, I believe, a false doctrine of 
the unity of the self, an exaggeration of that unity. In find- 
ing the self, the rinding act is not, to be sure, itself found; 
yet every other part of the self is found. At any moment the 
self is a whole complexity of interwoven acts; yet there is 
sufficient independence among them to permit of the direc- 
tion of one upon another. In other words, a part of the self 
discovers the rest. And this discovery does not involve, as 
is often supposed, that the part discovered be a merely 
remembered self; for the act of discovery may be contem- 
poraneous with the acts discovered. At the moment of dis- 
covery I am at once the act of discovery and the other acts. 
This is undoubtedly a difficult situation, as every psycholo- 
gist knows, and is the source of all the uncertainties in the 



THE SELF AND THE MIND 7 

theory of the self. A content is easy to find; not so an 
activity; for the diremption of the self, the setting of one 
activity over against another involves, since the self tends 
towards integration, the unclearness of one of the acts: 
either the introspected act becomes indistinct, or else the 
attitude of introspection becomes unsteady and is relaxed. 
Yet this difficulty is not insurmountable and we do actually 
find our activities. 

The objection may still be pressed that we have admitted 
the main contention of the objector; for we have provided 
for no finding of the finding activity itself. Does not this, 
the pure subject, remain the constant accompaniment of 
all our activities, forever undiscoverable by the ordinary 
means ? Well, as we have asserted, a given act of finding 
does not and cannot find itself; yet it can be found — by 
another act of rinding. Of course there will always be one 
act of finding which is not found ; otherwise there would be 
an infinite complexity in the self, which is not actual; yet 
any given act can always be found by another directed 
upon it. We should admit,, then, that at any moment the 
whole self cannot be found; that the ultimate act of finding 
is not itself found; but we deny that this last act is by 
nature different from any act of finding which we do dis- 
cover; for the fact that any given act can be found, and when 
found has essentially the same nature as all other acts, is 
proof that there is no aspect of the self which is inscrutable 
or essentially different from all the rest. 

And the admission that the ultimate act of finding is not 
itself found does not imply that it is known in some peculiar 



8 THE SELF AND NATURE 

fashion different from the knowledge of other things. There 
is only one type of knowledge, that through concepts. The 
self is known when there exist concepts which represent it; 
the self is found when such concepts are in contact with, are 
realized in the activities which they mean. Now the ulti- 
mate judgment in which these concepts are embodied is not 
itself known; for, by hypothesis, there is no judgment 
directed upon it. It simply exists. The supposition that it 
must be known and, since it cannot be known in the ordi- 
nary fashion, that it must be known in some occult mode, is 
based on the dogma that an experience cannot be without 
being known, that its very essence somehow involves a 
knowledge of it. But, although most of our adult experi- 
ences are actually known, as will appear shortly, they 
nevertheless are in themselves simply what they are: blue 
and soft, cold, strife and peace. 

The conception of the self which stands opposed to the one 
which we have been advocating is, of course, that of the 
so-called " pure ego." There exists, it is asserted, a some- 
thing to which content and activities are given, an awareness 
or consciousness, without the accompaniment of which no 
experience can exist. This conception has received so much 
able criticism in recent times that it may seem superfluous 
to consider it again. A re-examination of it will, however, 
throw light on our subject. Let us review the supposed data 
for this theory. 

First, there is a seeming complexity, a duplicity about 
every experience, even the simplest, which is the reason why 
we use the term experience to denote the elements of mind 



THE SELF AND THE MIND 9 

and are not content to refer to them as blue, green, hard, as 
mere qualities or whats. For example, blue as an element 
of mind seems to be something in addition to just blue — 
an experience or perception or consciousness of blue. 

There can be no doubt of the fact referred to here; but the 
fact is insufficiently analyzed and is no proof of the existence 
of mere awareness. For the complexity of any content or 
activity is due to its involution in other activities. Blue, as 
an element of mind, is almost always suffused with some 
feeling, some interest; and even when there is no feeling 
attached to it, there is a recognition of it which penetrates 
it likewise and is not externally related to it. And when as 
philosophers we examine the mind, we cannot find any con- 
tent or activity which does not forthwith become a known 
content or activity; so that, when we reflect upon this, we 
discover not only the original data but our own knowing of 
them also : a knowledge of the new whole, known blue, super- 
venes upon the mere blue to be known. But this knowledge 
is, of course, an activity, not a mysterious something dis- 
tinct from all activity. It is this constant discovery of his 
own recognition of the elements of mind by the reflective 
act of the thinker which accounts for the doctrine of the 
pure ego, rather than, as James supposed, the discovery of 
some attendant muscular or organic sensation; the latter is 
far too irrelevant a thing to mislead thinkers of the rank of 
those who have embraced this doctrine. We admit there- 
fore the duplicity — why not the multiplicity ? — of most 
of our experiences; but we deny that one of the threads of 
the skein is anything unique ; we assert rather that it is just 
an ordinary activity; usually it is knowledge. 



IO THE SELF AND NATURE 

A second datum for the theory of the pure ego is the fol- 
lowing: There seems to be something which remains iden- 
tical through the flux of different contents and activities; 
observe how, in the shift from this to that, there is something 
which abides throughout and seems to embrace the chang- 
ing items; when the clock ticks, for example, there seems to 
be something which spans the successive sounds. But is the 
permanence here anything more or less than some relatively 
stable elements of the mind which contrast with those in 
flux ? Is it not they which, through their successive contact 
with the different inflowing elements, span the transition ? 
In particular, is not the attitude of recognition and expecta- 
tion just the permanent element in question ? If, on the 
other hand, the point of this argument is to insist on the 
identity of the self and mind despite equally obvious 
change, we frankly admit that there is a problem; only 
we claim that its solution does not involve the existence of 
the pure ego, but is possible in terms of the nature of the 
mind as we have denned it, as we shall try to prove in our 
next chapter. 

In the third place, one might claim that consciousness or 
awareness is different from its content because it may be 
more or less ; while the latter does not offer any differences 
in degree. There is, for example, a difference of degree 
between the present activity of my thinking and the sound 
of my heart-beat; yet the quality of both would be the 
same if the degree were reversed ; for the difference is in the 
awareness of these things, not in the things themselves. But 
surely the fact referred to here is nothing more or less than 



THE SELF AND THE MIND II 

what the psychologists call clearness, and clearness is an 
attribute of the elements of mind, not itself the mind. It is 
no doubt true that elements can have degrees of clearness 
only in the mind, acquiring these differences through their 
relations to one another there. Clearness has, furthermore, 
some close relation, as Titchener says, to the " existence or 
being of mental elements; their becoming, their existence 
more or less, their temporal course." Yet these facts prove 
again only that clearness is an attribute of the elements of 
mind, not that it is mind itself. 

A final objection to our view would run somewhat as fol- 
lows : The activities with which you have identified the self 
are manifold, whereas the self is one; desiring, feeling and 
thinking are different, but the same self desires and thinks 
and feels. Well, the self is certainly one, yet just as cer- 
tainly a multiplicity; for it owns the many activities inde- 
feasibly. Its oneness must therefore be compatible with its 
plurality. And it need not be anything besides or in addi- 
tion to them. For the fact that we use the simple concept 
" I " or self does not prove that the self is distinct from its 
many acts; for we use this concept to denote the unity of the 
acts rather than the acts singly and to contrast them as 
members of this unity with " yours," which do not belong 
there. Just so, we speak of " the rose " in order to indicate it 
as a whole ; yet we do not imply that it is something in ad- 
dition to its various parts — stem, root, petals and the rest. 

It is plain from our discussions that the unity of the self is, 
next to the problem of what the self really is, the burning 
question in this field. This is a problem, moreover, the 



12 THE SELF AND NATURE 

answer to which is of decisive importance in determining the 
answers to most other metaphysical problems. It is also 
clear that we cannot separate this problem from that of the 
unity of mind, of which the self is a part. For the self is 
intertwined with content and both together form a single 
whole. Hence we must first investigate the pattern of the 
entire web, the mind, before we can discover the minor 
design of the self. Let us proceed, then, to this larger prob- 
lem. Throughout we shall have to confine ourselves to the 
broader aspects of the subject in their bearing on metaphysi- 
cal topics. The unity of mind has two dimensions — con- 
temporaneous and sequential: at any given moment the 
mind is one whole, and, in some fashion or other, the same 
as that which existed a moment before and throughout all 
moments of its existence. The two dimensions are interre- 
lated, but we shall start with the first, leaving the other for 
our next chapter. 

The mental unity which we are studying must be clearly 
distinguished from that which is studied by psychologists. 
They try to find the causes why this or that element is in the 
mind; the conditions for its existence there. The laws of « 
association and habit serve this end. Our task is a quite^ 
different one. ^We are not inquiring into the conditions for 
the existence of any element in the whole, but into the dis- 
tinctive character of the whole, once- it exists. We are 
interested in its cross-sectional, not in its dynamic unity. 
Our interest is in the former rather than in the latter, partly 
because the latter has been studied with some success by 
psychologists, while the former has been largely neglected 



THE SELF AND THE MIND 1 3 

by them ; but chiefly because the former is of supreme impor- 
tance for the solution of certain philosophical problems. 

An examination of the mind readily reveals the fact that 
there are many types of unity there. One of these is usually 
taken to be fundamental. For if there are many unities in 
the mind, it is clear that there must be a basal one to weave 
the many themselves into a unity. I do not mean, of course, 
that the larger unity is independent of the smaller ones, but 
simply that it cannot be identical with any of them, and 
must have its own specific nature. We shall begin with a 
criticism of some of the more fundamental of the lesser 
unities to the end of discovering the fundamental one which 
they all imply. 

One minor type of unity among mental elements is that 
of class. It is important to scrutinize this because it has 
recently been regarded as fundamental. The mind has been 
defined as a class of elements and the problem of mind 
described as that of finding the denning relation of the class. 
Now things form a class either because they resemble one 
another in some respect or, most generally of all, because 
they have a given relation to some term. 

That the fundamental type of unity is not that of class 
denned in the first way is clear, because there is no unique 
point of resemblance which at once embraces all the ele- 
ments of a mind and distinguishes them from every other 
mind. The elements of a mind form a multitude of exclu- 
sive or intersecting classes: the visual, auditory, tactual, 
clear and unclear, and so on, indefinitely. But no one of 
these classes unites them all. And those classes which do 



14 THE SELF AND NATURE 

unite all the elements of a mind — such as the classes of all 
elements which are temporal or existent, for example — 
contain the elements of every mind. There is no class, 
denned through resemblance, to which all the elements of 
one mind belong and from which those of other minds are 
excluded. But even if minds have some elements in com- 
mon, those which belong to a given mind are united among 
themselves in a way in which they are not united with some, 
at least, of the elements of other minds. 

Next, let us inquire whether the elements of mind form a 
unique class through the relation of all to some unique thing. 
This is the path taken by most of the so-called new realists. 
The thing in question is supposed to be the brain, or the 
body if the psycho-physical relation is thought of as involv- 
ing the entire organism. The elements of a mind are one at 
least in this respect, that they and they alone have the 
psycho-physical relation to a particular body. It is not 
necessary, for our present purpose, to define this relation; 
it is sufficient to indicate it as one which, however defined, 
must be admitted by all. Now we must grant, of course, 
that the elements of a given mind do have a relation to a 
particular brain or body which no other elements have; and 
that through this relation they are constituted into a unity. 
Yet, until we know definitely what the relation between 
mind and body is, we cannot know from its mere existence 
what kind of unity it constitutes. If I were told that several 
individuals stood in the filial relation to a certain man but 
knew nothing about that relation, I could form no idea of the 
unity which they composed; I could simply know that it 



THE SELF AND THE MIND IS 

existed. This the new realists recognize, because in defining 
mind through the psycho-physical relation they proceed on 
the basis of a definite notion of that relation — reaction. 
The mind, they say, is the class of elements selected out of 
the whole universe of things through the reactions of the 
body to them. Whatever a body reacts to forthwith be- 
comes an element in a corresponding mind ; a mind is just 
the class of such elements. But you cannot define mind as 
the class of elements reacted to by a body, for this one 
reason at least, namely, that many of the elements do not 
exist previous to their existence as elements of mind, and so 
are incapable of being selected out through the body's 
action. It is absurd to think of the brain as reacting to feel- 
ings and memories in the same way that the organism reacts 
to light or heat. I do not mean, of course, that there is no 
psycho-physical process of memory or feeling; I mean that 
you cannot start with these things as given independent of 
the mind and then define their presence within the mind by 
means of the psycho-physical relation; above all, you can- 
not think of the brain as selecting them by reacting upon 
them. You cannot start with the universe of all elements 
undifferentiated into mental and non-mental, and then 
define the former as a group selected out of the whole 
through organic action, because a large share of the elements 
of mind do not exist at all except as mental elements. 

But there are other reasons closer at hand for rejecting 
this method of describing the unity of mind. In the first 
place, the unity of mind is a fact of immediate experience, 
something patent to the direct inspection of mind; it can be 



1 6 THE SELF AND NATURE 

known quite apart from any knowledge of the body or the 
brain. In the second place, when we do appeal to the testi- 
mony of the mind as to its own unity, we find that its unity 
is misrepresented if described as a class or collection. It is 
characteristic of a class or collection that when you take 
away or adjoin an element you alter only its numerical and 
ordinal properties. But this is not true of the mind. The 
loss or adjunction of an element produces changes both in 
the mind as a whole and in the individual elements of the 
whole. The sudden emergence of an acute pain, for example, 
will cause a disappearance of many elements from the mind 
and the suffusion of the remaining ones with a mood of dis- 
satisfaction ; thoughts and purposes will take flight; a com- 
plex pattern will be reduced to a simple one; the relative 
clearness and un clearness of elements will be reversed; the 
body which was marginal will become focal and the once 
dominant ideas will be scattered to the background or dis- 
appear. Again, a class can be denned by a mere enumera- 
tion of the elements which compose it; but not so a mind. 
There is a mode of combination of one element with another, 
an interfusion, which no mere enumeration can describe. 
Wistfulness and violet color will not describe that suffusion 
of one by the other which characterizes the sensitive intui- 
tion of the flower. In short, the elements of a mind are a 
whole, not a mere class. No indication of the reactions of 
the body to elements of its environment can explain or 
describe this wholeness. 

Another type of unity within the mind is that of meaning. 
Thus all the words on this page as I write them, as they be- 



THE SELF AND THE MIND 1 7 

come elements of my mind, are united with one another 
through the one thought which they convey, and with the 
keys of the typewriter through the apperceived causal rela- 
tion between the striking and the printing. Similarly, each 
part of the machine, for one who knows the scheme of the 
whole, refers to or means every other part. Almost, if not 
all, the things in the room, books, pictures, chairs, tables, 
as elements of the mind, are meanings, items of experience 
which refer beyond themselves to other things. And mean- 
ing is a mode of union which seems to be uniquely character- 
istic of mind. Apart from mind things may perhaps have 
causal, spatial and other relations, but they do not mean one 
another. Only when they are apperceived in their relations 
to one another, so that one may suggest another to a mind, 
do they mean one another. For example, clouds may per- 
haps cause or be followed by rain independently of mind; 
but they can mean rain only to a mind which uses them as 
signs from which to infer rain. Yet meaning is not the funda- 
mental unity of mind. In order for it to be this, each item of 
mind would have to mean every other item. Now each item 
may do this — for reflection ; there is surely some respect in 
which each may suggest every other. But before reflection 
there are countless elements which do not do this. The sight 
of the child in the street did not mean my elbow, yet both 
were present within the unity of my mind. And that mean- 
ing is not the essence of the unity of mind is also clear from 
the fact that an element of one mind may mean an element 
of another without thereby forming with it a single mind. 
For example, the sound of your voice means to me a certain 



1 8 THE SELF AND NATURE 

emotion of yours, which can never be an element in my con- 
sciousness. Meaning is one of the characteristic modes of 
union between the elements of different minds; hence it 
cannot constitute the unique principle of union within a 
single mind. 

A fourth type of unity of which much has been made is 
that of purpose or interest. At any given moment of experi- 
ence a large number of items are clearly united through some 
single purpose which they are all subserving or some one 
interest which they all arouse. For example, when a botanist 
examines a flower, the multitude of his impressions are bound 
together by the interest which he displays in them, and the 
movements of his fingers, so far as they reach consciousness, 
are all connected as serving the purpose of study. But this 
type of unity — through an activity of the self — although 
another very important one, is not the most fundamental, 
for reasons exactly the same as in the preceding case. For 
at any moment there are items of mind which are not united 
in this way. The crying of the child is irrelevant to the 
purpose of writing. One might answer, of course, that it is 
connected just as a disturbing element. But what of the 
thousand impressions in the field of inattention ? These are 
related neither as serving nor as hindering purpose; yet 
they are present along with the rest in the one mind. And 
how is the mind united when there is a conflict of interests 
within it, as when I try to write and to listen to what is 
going on upstairs ? There is no higher purpose or interest 
which spans both. Finally, interest may be directed upon 
things which do not thereby come within the circle of one's 



THE SELF AND THE MIND 1 9 

mind. Thus, when we take an interest in each other, we are 
not made into one whole of experience. The unity of mind 
cannot, therefore, be described in terms of mere interest 
alone. 

Another type of union is that which is made by the rela- 
tion of the elements of mind to the idea of the self. A large 
mass of experience is continually suffused by this idea. 
The emotions awakened during social intercourse and the 
elements of the conscious body with which they are con- 
nected are notably so. As has often been observed, the idea 
of the self serves to mark off the elements of one mind from 
those of another; it is therefore uppermost when social life 
with its contrasts occupies attention. Its sphere of applica- 
tion is properly, of course, the activities which constitute 
the self and those elements of mind with which they are 
most closely interwoven. But since all the elements of the 
mind are connected more or less closely with the self, it is 
possible to refer them all to the idea of the self. In aesthetic 
perception, for example, one may connect the idea of the 
self with the colors or lines or sounds of a beautiful thing — 
feeling oneself into them, as the Germans say. Yet this 
reference to the idea of the self is intermittent. We must 
remember that this act is one of reflection. The idea of the 
self is a concept under which certain elements are subsumed. 
The idea of the self is not the self. It serves most effectively 
to unite the elements which are referred to it; yet the mind 
can and does exist without it. Before the development of 
ideation, it could not exist at all. The self, of course, is as old 
as the mind, but not so the idea of the self. The greatest 



20 THE SELF AND NATURE 

confusion has arisen through failure to distinguish between 
the two. Because the idea of the self can easily be shown not 
to be an original existence, people have supposed that the 
self was also derivative ; but such an argument would de- 
molish all experience; for the concepts under which we 
subsume any part of it are, of course, genetically secondary. 
The confusion leads also to grave ethical consequences ; for 
the idea of the self is created more by wish than by observa- 
tion and therefore misleads us constantly into thinking that 
we can do things of which we are really incapable — the 
source of all the great illusions. Again, the idea of the self is 
more largely reflective of what other people think we are or 
want us to be than of what we are or want ourselves to be ; 
hence when we act according to it, although we may satisfy 
others, we often fail to satisfy ourselves. The self is primary, 
not the idea of the self, which may, and usually does, partly 
misrepresent the self; the self accompanies all of our experi- 
ences; the idea of the self only certain ones under certain 
conditions, mostly of a social origin and character. The 
self-conscious man is one in whose mind there is clear and 
uppermost an idea of the self. Yet even such a person is at 
times without it. When he is alone and quietly working, it is 
not present with him. Hence the suffusion of the elements of 
mind with the idea of the self creates only a subordinate 
type of unity. 

The fact that the self and the idea of the self are dis- 
tinct, although related, elements of mind has caused much 
confusion of terminology. The terms, consciousness, self-, 
consciousness, self and mind are not always clearly distin- 



THE SELF AND THE MIND 21 

guished. Let us fix our own use of them. We have already 
agreed to employ mind and consciousness as equivalent 
terms to mean a personal whole of experience. By self we 
have agreed to mean the activities in their unity. Now, 
although the self and the idea of the self, the mind and the 
idea of the mind are distinct things, and both mind and self 
may exist without being known ; nevertheless, consciousness 
and self-consciousness are continually being confused. This 
is perhaps most strikingly brought out in the use of the 
negatives of these terms. Thus the term " unconscious " 
is employed not only with the proper meaning of the absence 
of something from mind or the non-existence of a mind, as in 
the phrases " I lost consciousness " and " I was not con- 
scious of the noise "; but also with the improper meaning of 
the failure to know something which is in the mind, the 
absence from the mind of an idea which means it, as when 
one is said to work " unconsciously " when one works with- 
out plan or criticism, when one forgets oneself, that is, 
remits attention to one's acts, and so lets the idea of them, 
which is their reflex, lapse. One is even said to be conscious 
when what is really meant is that one is self-conscious; the 
person who is " conscious " about his behaviour being, of 
course, the self-conscious person. Yet the poet is conscious 
during the most unreflective, inspirational activity, although 
not self-conscious; the most intense moments of conscious- 
ness are the most " unconscious " in the improper meaning 
of the term — the most free from self-consciousness. 

The discussion of the last paragraph leads to the con- 
sideration of a final method of describing the unity of mind. 



22 THE SELF AND NATURE 

The mind, one may say, consists of all those elements of 
reality in which one can get an adequate realization of an 
idea which means them; it consists of all those things which 
can be brought into contact with the idea of them. Other 
things, outside of the mind, cannot be brought into contact 
with such an idea. Now we have already used this method 
to find the elements of mind and to delimit them from things 
not in the mind. And it is true that the finding of elements 
by an idea which was " looking for them " does bring them 
into unity with the idea, in the first place, and with the rest 
of the mind, in the second place. But it is easy to see that 
this type of unification cannot be the fundamental one. 
For not all elements of the mind are found; they exist in the 
unity of mind before we reflectively look for them. The 
primary unity of mind exists before any one seeks to test 
whether an element belongs within it or not. This type of 
unity is, therefore, like the others which we have examined, 
a secondary one which may be superposed, along with the 
rest, upon the original type. 

Let us now turn from a critique of current accounts of the 
unity of mind to a somewhat independent investigation of 
the matter. 

The mistake of most of the accounts which we have ex- 
amined was to substitute some secondary type which may 
be present, but is not uniquely characteristic, for the pri- 
mary one upon which it depends. Thus the unity through 
interest, as we saw, was not in itself a unification of the 
elements of mind, since it may embrace things, like other 
minds, which do not form elements of the one mind in ques- 



THE SELF AND THE MIND 23 

tion. The same we saw to be true of meaning and of knowl- 
edge. It is only when an interest in things is in contact with 
them that it serves to unite them in the whole of mind; it is 
only when an idea which means a thing can also touch it, as 
it were, that the two form elements of a single mind; it is 
only when one thing which suggests another is in contact 
with that other through contact of both with an apperceiv- 
ing idea, that the union which we seek is effected. The 
primary unity of mind consists in the contact of the self 
with content; upon this as a basis is built more complex 
types of unification. 

Let us develop this. First let us recall what we mean by 
the self. The self consists of the activities, of striving, feel- 
ing and thinking, in their various modes and with their 
attendant images and organic reverberations. Now the 
presence in mind of any content is its contact with them. 
For example, I am conscious of, have in mind, the clock 
tick when I, this whole of striving, feeling, thinking, am 
welded together with it, when it penetrates this mass, touch- 
ing an interest or a judgment of recognition or a mood, and 
so soliciting and usually receiving the direction of these 
things upon it. Contact with the self does not depend upon 
the direction of interest or judgment upon content; when a 
content enters the mind, these functions are usually engaged 
upon content already present. No; the contact of the con- 
tent elicits this direction; the contact with the activities 
comes first; the direction of the activities follows. Elements 
of content may belong to all kinds of other wholes, qualita- 
tive and causal, like a chord or a mechanism; but I am con- 



24 THE SELF AND NATURE 

scious of them, they are " in mind," only when they come 
into contact with the self and bring one of the activities to 
bear upon it. A bit of content comes to mind when it 
touches the self; it passes from consciousness when this 
contact is ruptured. Thus, when I open my eyes I am 
brought into contact with the landscape; when I close them 
I am shut off from it. Through an idea which remembers it, 
I may still take an interest in it, may take pleasure in it and 
know it; but my interest can no longer play upon it or my 
pleasure encircle it or my knowing idea melt with it. 

In describing the unity of the self with content as a con- 
tact of one with the other, I do not wish to imply that this 
relation is spatial. I use " contact" as the most expressive 
term which we possess to indicate that unique being together 
of content with the self which everybody who observes his 
own mind will understand. 

The unity of the self with content may be greater or less. 
Data in the field of inattention are only loosely connected 
with it; they touch the self without being embraced by it. 
Elements are closely connected when they are interwoven 
with many activities simultaneously. Thus, in aesthetic 
manufacture, color and line and touch are suffused with 
pleasure and interest, and even at times with the idea of the 
self. Or in longing for spring there is a meaning which 
inheres in images of warmth and green, around which circle 
desire and pleasure and the idea of the self. The most im- 
pressive cases of complete unification are excited perception, 
as in watching the acts of an enemy, beauty, and the aban- 
don of passion. Very seldom, however, is the mind com- 



THE SELF AND THE MIND 25 

pletely integrated; seldom, if ever, are all the activities con- 
centrated at a given point; they are usually diffused over a 
wide area, so that few elements of content penetrate the 
whole self, but, remaining at the periphery, fail to reach the 
center. An element may, however, gradually work its way 
to the focus. Thus, when occupied in writing, a bit of color 
in the landscape will at first be scarcely seen; presently, 
however, more and more of the interest of the self will be 
bent towards it; thought, feeling and memory will be 
brought into touch with it — it will at last have become 
entwined with the whole self. And the reverse process may 
occur. A pain will at first draw to itself the thoughts, feel- 
ings and energies of the self; soon, however, while remain- 
ing just as acute, the activities will be drawn away from it 
to other things, until, finally, it will exist only on the out- 
skirts, ready at any moment to break contact with the self 
and so to disappear from the mind. What is called the 
clearness of content is in general a function of the closeness 
of this contact of the self with it. 

Thus the primary unity of mind consists in the contact of 
the self with content: I am conscious of, have in mind, 
whatever I am in contact with. If, then, this constitutes the 
unity of mind, what, we must inquire next, constitutes the 
unity of the self ? The unity of the self is something similar, 
only more closely knit. Of what sort, for example, is the 
unity of this memory of injury, this indignation and desire 
for vengeance and thoughts seeking impetuously a scheme 
of retribution — all present simultaneously in the breast of 
a man ? It is clearly not the convergence of the many activi- 



26 THE SELF AND NATURE 

ties upon one topic; for the activities of many men may 
similarly converge, yet do not form one self; and a man 
still remains one man when his activities are distraught; 
when impulses tear him in diverse directions or when he 
tries to think of many things at once. Well, the unity within 
the self is open for any man to inspect ; let him compare the 
appropriateness of the expressions which we shall use to 
describe it with the evidence of his own experience. The 
unity, we say, is an interweaving of the activities. It is 
nothing besides them; it is a growing together of them, an 
interpenetration of them. Just as color and shape are 
grown together in a flower, so thought and feeling and striv- 
ing are grown together in the self. And this interweaving of 
activities is, we repeat, different from their ideal unity in the 
direction of them to the same end. The ideal unity is 
correlated with a real unity, but does not suffice to create it. 
Just as the unity of the self with content has degrees, so 
the unity of the activities may be more or less. It is greatest 
in states of what we call concentration; it is less in distrac- 
tion ; and least of all in those pathological conditions when 
it threatens to be disrupted. We may compare the state of 
concentration of activities to a pencil of rays which lie so 
close together that they almost form a single strand; in 
distraction the rays diverge, yet keep their point of contact; 
in pathological conditions the divergence is still greater, 
until, in dissociation, the pulling apart is successful and the 
tie is broken. When I say that it is the one self which thinks 
and desires and feels I do not imply that there is some bare 
unity which enters into each of these activities and makes 



THE SELF AND THE MIND 2J 

them all one; I mean that the desire is interwoven with the 
thinking and with the feeling; that one activity is penetrat- 
ing another, so that, in a true sense, the whole self — all the 
activities — is present in any one of them. 

Thus, to conclude, we have found that the unity of the 
mind consists, in the first place, of the contact of the self 
with content; and, in the second place, of the interweav- 
ing of the many activities, which are the self, one with 
another. The activities are interwoven among themselves 
and with the content, and this woven web is the mind. 



CHAPTER II 

PERSONAL IDENTITY 

IN the present chapter we shall discuss the sequential unity 
of the mind. In what sense does the mind of one moment 
form one mind with that of another moment ? From the 
cradle to the grave, the life of the individual is a continual 
process of change ; yet to itself and to others, it seems to be 
one life ; the self that dies is the same self, we believe, as that 
which was born. Let us begin our discussion with leading 
theories of the subject and then offer our own. We shall find 
that the identity of the mind has always been denied under 
cover of accepting it. 

First, there is the theory that the identity of the mind con- 
sists in the identity of the body or the brain with which it is 
connected. Experience, it is said, is essentially evanescent; 
it is born and dead at every moment; the same experience 
never recurs; during sleep it does not exist at all. Yet the 
body, and the brain in particular, upon which experience 
depends, has a continuous existence. The same body wakens 
and acts which became quiet and slept; the same body that 
was placed in the cradle is put into the grave. That this 
theory is really a denial of personal identity is clear from the 
following considerations. In the first place, the experience 
of an individual is not his brain. If the brain has a continu- 
ous existence and experience only a fleeting and interrupted 

28 



PERSONAL IDENTITY 29 

one, they cannot be identical. Or, if experience is identified 
with some particular phase of the brain's action, why when 
I know my own experience do I not know this physical proc- 
ess also ? For, if one thing is identical with another, a 
knowledge of the first involves a knowledge of the second. 
Yet notoriously the introspection of experience does not 
reveal any trace of the brain. And even if experience were 
identical with certain phases of the brain's action, no iden- 
tity within experience would be guaranteed ; for the phases 
themselves are admittedly transient. An identity in the 
brain's substance, if it existed, would not create an identity 
in its phases; but, from the standpoint of natural science, 
there is no such identity there, since the atoms which com- 
pose it are ever being replaced. And if, finally, it is claimed 
that during the conscious existence of the individual the 
form of the atomic swarm remains the same, and that this 
constitutes the real identity within the mind, we should 
have to ask how the same form can exist in different matters, 
and if it can, why experience itself may not have a direct 
identity of the same kind ? Why have recourse to the brain 
at all ? And thus we should be led into the theory of 
personal identity which we shall next examine. 

According to this second theory, the identity of the mind 
lies within the mind itself, in the sameness of the form of its 
elements. The essential evanescence of the substance of 
experience is presupposed, but the same form may exist in 
different matters, it is claimed. Although each moment of 
experience is unique in substance, nevertheless, the quality 
of the organic sensations which make up its matrix remains 



30 THE SELF AND NATURE 

specifically the same, and the desires, purposes and life- 
plans which constitute its spiritual core are ideally identical 
from moment to moment. The intent of this theory evi- 
dently depends upon the logic of identity. If by sameness of 
form or quality be meant similarity, then this theory, like 
the others, is a covert denial of self identity. For resem- 
blance, no matter how great you make it, is still not iden- 
tity. And what I claim with my past self is not mere 
similarity, but identity. So far as similarity is concerned, I 
am less like the child that I was than I am like my twin, 
whose education, way of life and thought are like my own. 
Yet, so we claim, I and the child are one, while I and the 
twin are irreducibly two. On the other hand, if by identity 
of form be meant real identity, then surely this is not 
possible at all with a different matter of experience. Form 
and matter are not so external to one another that the 
former may be the same and the latter utterly different; an 
identity in the one implies some identity in the other. Two 
things may have similar forms and remain two ; they cannot 
have the same form without being one. 

There is a Platonic interpretation of this theory of per- 
sonal identity according to which the experiences of an 
individual are one if they illustrate, embody, or unfold a 
single idea; if they all contribute something to his unique 
and determinate destiny. Identity in the different moments 
of a man's experience is thus explained as the possession by 
all of the same relation to a certain thing — his lot or fate 
or " intelligible character," or however else one may desig- 
nate it. The result of this theory is, nevertheless, not dif- 



PERSONAL IDENTITY 3 1 

ferent from that of the last. No identity between one 
moment of experience and another is guaranteed. For many 
different things can have the same relation to a given term; 
for example, many brothers have the same relation of son- 
ship to the one father. Through sameness of relation to a 
given term items are made into a class, not into an identity. 
In the second place, this theory presupposes determinism — 
the existence of a set of truths about the life of each indi- 
vidual before he lives it. But, as we shall show later, no such 
complex of truths pre-exists; for all truth, so far as individ- 
ual, is post factum. Of course the theory can be conceived in 
a less Platonic fashion. One may simply observe that every 
life runs a unique course and permits of a unique story. 
Men have plans and carry them out, and fulfill tasks which 
extend through the years, thus giving unity to their lives. 
Yet in the drama of some lives the episodes are more numer- 
ous than the acts, and there is little or no coherence. And 
this empirical form of the theory comes in the end to the 
same thing as the Platonic: it provides no real identity 
between the various moments of experience, but an ideal 
unity at best. Finally, any one who believes in the reality 
and not merely in the semblance of self identity would 
raise the following objection: the identity is immediate; 
there need be no consciousness of one's special function in 
the world or relation to one's star; one may be ignorant of 
one's appointed place and lot, yet know one's personal 
sameness none the less. 

Another type of sequential unity of which much has been 
made is continuity. During waking experience the process 



32 THE SELF AND NATURE 

of change over a wide area is very gradual. Now when this 
feature is combined with the preservation of approximately 
the same specific form, the impression of identity in anything 
is very strong. If the elements of an object are gradually 
replaced by similar ones in a similar arrangement, every one 
takes it to be the same thing. May this not be the case with 
the self ? Well, if this is all there is to personal identity, 
then personal identity is an illusion. In order to make 
identity real, there must be some substantial core which per- 
sists despite and in the midst of continual change. And such 
is the identity to which experience seems to testify. 

Another characteristic of experience which is emphasized 
in connection with the above as providing a basis for the 
idea of personal identity is the causal relation between one 
phase of the mind and another. The deeds done by the self 
of the present influence the life of later moments; habits 
formed in youth have consequences in old age. Each new 
moment of experience grows out of the preceding. Yet, 
unless all causation involves identity between cause and 
effect, this fact is evidence of a unity within experience, but 
not of identity. And if identity were involved, it would 
prove identity not only between one phase of a self and 
another, but also between one self and another self. For 
a self's deeds are effective not only in subsequent moments 
of its own life, but in other selves as well. The causal 
relation between one self and another is not so direct as 
between different moments of a single self, yet is none 
the less real. Yet surely this consequence is to be avoided; 
and, if so, the idea of personal identity does not rest on 



PERSONAL IDENTITY 33 

the causal relation between one moment of experience and 
another. 

The two theories which we shall examine last have been 
made famous through the advocacy of James. James's first 
theory of personal identity was that it consisted in the iden- 
tity of the things which the self means or takes an interest 
in. Thus, at different times I see what I suppose to be the 
same rose. This does not mean, we are told, that my rose- 
perceptions are the same; for they are dead ineluctably on 
each occasion ; it means that I perceive through my differ- 
ent experiences the same thing. Again, on different days 
and at different times during the same day, I think of an 
absent friend; this does not imply that I have the same 
thought, but only that I think of the same object. It is 
inaccurate to say that I have the same interests, thoughts 
and purposes from day to day; I should rather say that I 
think of the same things, take an interest in the same 
objects, purpose the same undertakings. Experiences are 
always unique and fleeting; what lends them their seeming 
stability and identity is the power which they possess of 
meaning the same things. Thus self identity is again ex- 
plained away as an illusion, this time arising from the sub- 
stitution of the identical objects meant by experiences for 
the experiences themselves. Yet this explanation has little 
plausibility. Why, if it is true, do I not identify myself with 
historical individuals who devoted themselves to the same 
problems which are occupying me ? Why do I not identify 
myself with my boon companion or fellow worker ? Of 
course, in a mystical moment, I may do so; yet in such a 



34 THE SELF AND NATURE 

moment I may feel myself to be one with the cuttlefish; 
these experiences may be of value in throwing light on the 
metaphysical oneness of all things ; but they do not illumine 
the distinctive identity of a man with himself. And the 
plain teaching of our experience is falsified if we interpret 
away the evident identity of thought, feeling and interest 
into an identity of their objects. 

Last, there is the other theory of James, that personal 
identity consists in the assimilation or appropriation of past 
experiences by the successive pulses of new experience. 
Personal identity is thus made to consist in self identifica- 
tion. I am identical with my own past rather than with 
yours because I claim this identity; because I take an 
interest in my own which I cannot take in yours, and refer 
my present experiences back to it in a unique fashion. The 
thought of my past has for mea" warmth and intimacy " 
which the past of another person is incapable of causing, 
however interesting it may be to me. The basis of this 
identification of each self with a unique past is, of course, 
memory. 

Every thinker is indebted to James for his description of 
personal identity, the merest outline of which is given above. 
Yet here, as almost everywhere, James has failed quite to 
hit the mark. In the first place, there is no recognition of 
personal identity as a fact with an attempt to show how it 
is possible ; but merely another effort to explain it away. 
For let us consider the various parts of this description in 
turn. A claim to identity is not identity; unless supported 
by facts, it is simply a boast or a falsehood. Insane people 



PERSONAL IDENTITY 35 

have claimed identity with Napoleon or Christ. What makes 
the claim to identity substantial in one case and foolish in 
another ? Various things which have already been examined, 
such as continuity and causal unity, may now be adduced. 
Yet if no real identity is proved by them, what right have 
they to be introduced as evidence ? Perhaps the other ele- 
ments in James's theory must also be taken into account 
— the feelings of warmth and intimacy. But does a mere 
feeling of kinship and ownership prove or constitute kinship 
or ownership ? And should we not seek to cut it out and 
cast it from us if it be not a response to fact ? As for mem- 
ory, if each act is new, the fact that it looks to an identical 
and unique past does not confer any real identity upon the 
several remembering experiences ; it simply makes of them 
a unique class through their relation to a unique object — 
the historical truth about, or biography of, the individual 
in question. The self identity of the truth remembered 
by supposedly different memories cannot make them iden- 
tical. 

Thus all the theories of personal identity which we have 
examined are really denials of it, plain efforts to explain 
away our conviction of it. We shall now attempt to do two 
things: first to refute the dogma upon which this denial is 
based, and second, to develop a positive theory which shall 
rest upon, and support the belief in, real identity. 

The dogma upon which the denial of personal identity 
rests is that of the volatility of experience, its incapacity of 
existing beyond the moment, a prejudice which has the sup- 
port of most psychologists and philosophers of the present 



36 THE SELF AND NATURE 

day. In contrast, things are supposed to possess a stuff-like 
nature which permits them to remain the same from moment 
to moment. This alleged evanescence of experience is often 
thought of as constituting one of its points of superiority 
over matter; why I do not know, unless volatility and 
spirituality are still to be identified. Yet, as we shall insist 
later, this contrast between experience and things does not 
exist. We know nothing of things except as they are given 
to us in our experience and as we are led to extend this 
knowledge with the given as a basis, which, however, can 
lead us to nothing essentially different. Hence if experience 
is by nature transient, things must be transient also; if 
there is no real identity and permanence in the one, there is 
none in the other. The doctrine of the radical difference 
between experience and things is based on the substitution 
of concepts like ion, atom and molecule for the concrete 
thing experiences which are given to us, a substitution 
which has symbolic and practical value only, as men of 
science are coming to realize with increasing clearness. 

Besides the substitution of symbolic concepts for things, 
there are other reasons, nearer to the field of ordinary knowl- 
edge, for the supposed contrast between experience and 
things. One is the apparent constancy of sense experience 
and the evident flux of thoughts, feelings and emotions. For 
the common man, sense experience is matter and all the 
ideas which philosophers construct on the topic have still 
their roots in this experience. But, as we know, sense 
experience is a part of the mind, so that whatever stability 
is to be credited to the former must be credited also to at 



PERSONAL IDENTITY 37 

least that part of the mind which it composes. If there is any 
permanence and identity in the things which we perceive, 
there must be a corresponding permanence and identity in 
our perceptions of them; for things are partly given in 
perception. 

Another reason is the persistence of the body during the 
sleep and after the death of its possessor. We have already 
adverted to this. But it proves only the persistence and 
identity of the body experiences of the people who observe 
the body. To be sure, these experiences are, as we shall try 
to show, part of the physical world; yet they are none the 
less part of the minds of those who perceive the body, so 
that, if they possess identity and persistence, the minds 
do also. And the fact that the body and the rest of the 
physical world outlast the man does not prove their essen- 
tial imperishability, but only their superior durability; and 
does not prove that mind has no share in this quality; quite 
the contrary; for we come to know of its existence in things 
through the existence of things in minds. 

Finally, the location of experiences in the temporal series 
is another reason for the doctrine which we are examining. 
An experience which is placed at a given moment in the 
time series is thought to be incapable of existing at a dif- 
ferent moment. Since all moments are unique, it is argued 
that all things, which, of course, exist at some moment or 
another, must also be unique; that since no moment can 
recur or endure, the experiences which exist at a given 
moment cannot recur and endure, that is, cannot exist at 
different, including subsequent, moments. 



38 THE SELF AND NATURE 

I do not think that it is usually perceived that this line of 
argument would prove equally the pure instantaneousness of 
physical things. For everything in the physical world also 
has location in the time series. The fallacy of the argument 
is due to failure to perceive that the uniqueness of moments 
does not involve the uniqueness of the things which exist at 
those moments. For the same thing can exist through many 
moments. The facts of motion, rest, growth and change 
leave no doubt about this. Of course a thing does not endure 
unchanged; yet there is identity despite the alteration, else 
we should not be able to recognize it as the same. The meta- 
physical and dialectical difficulties involved here we shall 
consider when we discuss the general subject of time and 
change. Now I cannot understand why experience should 
be in any case different from things in this regard. There 
is no logical principle which necessitates a difference, and 
empirically, experiences are found to endure, change and 
grow — all facts which contradict instantaneousness. Just 
as the same thing can exist at different moments, either 
remaining at rest or moving from point to point, so the 
same experience can abide during many instants, not wholly 
unchanged, of course, yet partially identical. 

This may be admitted to be true of much of continuous 
waking experience, yet the intermittence of experience 
during sleep and at other times will be held by most to 
render inexact our comparison of the psychic with the physi- 
cal. Here we touch the palmary argument of the believers 
in the volatility of experience. Physical substance can be 
identical from moment to moment, it will be claimed, 



PERSONAL IDENTITY 39 

because there is no discontinuity in its existence ; but any 
experience which comes to be after a lapse of time must be 
absolutely new and unique; it cannot be the same as that 
which preceded the interval. Omitting for the moment the 
question whether the discontinuity of mind proves a radical 
distinction between mind and matter, let us inquire whether 
it is fatal to the identity of mind. Now the supposition that 
it is rests, I believe, on the fallacy about time just referred 
to, namely, that because moments are unique the things 
which occupy those moments are unique also. But the fact 
that the moment of waking is different from that of falling 
asleep does not imply that the waking experience is numeri- 
cally different from the experience which was falling asleep, 
and the interval of time between does not affect the situa- 
tion at all. This is not perceived because of the surreptitious 
idea that we have to do here with two distinct experiences : 
one the waking experience and the other the experience 
which fell asleep. Two things, of course, cannot be identical. 
But the fact is that there is only one experience involved, the 
present experience, which is partly identical with the past. 
We must not think of the present experience as existing at 
some point on the line of time and the past one as existing at 
a different point further back. In so far as the present ex- 
perience is identical with the past, it exists both now and 
then. The root of the trouble lies in thinking of time as a 
straight line having independent reality, whereas in fact 
time is nothing except the process of experience and the 
trail of truth which it leaves in its wake — all of which 
we shall make clear in our treatment of time. 



40 THE SELF AND NATURE 

Nevertheless, the doubter will probably not be satisfied 
with our explanations ; he will object : surely the past experi- 
ence did cease to exist ; there was a time during which it was 
not at all; how then can that which once has not been be 
again numerically the same as it was before ? Well, why 
not ? Experience is a process of transformation and crea- 
tion; hence, why cannot that which was destroyed be 
recreated — that which was formed be formed anew ? 
There is no principle of thought or reality which forbids 
this. And the denial of it is due to ignorance of the funda- 
mentally resilient character of experience. In the passage to 
non-existence a thing does not acquire any new character 
which could distinguish it from what it was; during the 
period of non-existence it undergoes no radical transforma- 
tion — how could it ? — and there is no new character 
added by emergence into existence. Existence, as Kant said, 
is no quality and non-existence equally not. The mere fact 
that a thing exists or does not exist does not affect its char- 
acter; hence cannot affect its sameness or difference. The 
whole difficulty roots, I repeat, in the supposition that the 
present thing has its double back in the past; that there are 
two existences which, qua two, cannot be identical. But, 
once more, a difference in moments does not involve a dif- 
ference in existences; for the same thing may exist at many 
different moments and quite irrespective of whether they are 
continuous or discontinuous. The very same experience that 
was can exist anew at separate moments of time; and these 
reappearances are not duplicates of the old; they are just 
the old recreated. When an experience disintegrates, it 



PERSONAL IDENTITY 41 

ceases to exist absolutely; but now, this very thing may be 
redintegrated; that which ceased to exist may come again 
into existence. And its sameness is not of mere quality as 
distinguished from numerical or existential sameness. If the 
past and the present thing were two, as two rungs of a ladder 
are two, this would have to be the case. But the very stuff 
of the old is born again, and when reborn is the same past 
thing which was destroyed and had ceased to exist until 
now. 

Thus far, however, we have simply shown the baselessness 
of the prejudices against personal identity, but we have not 
shown it to be real. We turn now to the positive, construc- 
tive task. We must show two things: first, that personal 
identity exists, and second, how much of the person is iden- 
tical; for we admit, with every one else, that a large share of 
experience is transient. 

But first of all we must inquire more narrowly into what 
we mean by identity and how we can prove that it exists in 
the mind. By identity may be meant the abstract concept 
or meaning, identity. This, however, like all concepts, is the 
reflex or representative in the mind of something real in that 
which the mind knows and reflects upon. The application 
of a concept to anything is the assertion that there exists in 
the thing a reality corresponding to the concept, known by 
the concept. To verify a concept means to bring the concept 
and the reality which it means face to face, to cover the one 
with the other. Hence, just as the concept blue means the 
concrete blue of skies and flowers, means this element in the 
reality of these things, and could be formed only because 



42 THE SELF AND NATURE 

there is this real blue in things; so identity means something 
concrete and real in the things of which it is asserted. If you 
ask me what identity is, I should have to reply by showing 
you an identical object, by giving you an experience of 
identity; just as, if you were to ask me what blue is, I should 
show you something blue, give you a blue experience. For 
identity is just as simple and irreducible as blue. 

Identity must be carefully distinguished from similarity. 
Similarity pertains to two things ; identity only to one. Thus 
two leaves are similar, while each is identical. Those things 
are similar to which the same concepts can be applied, the 
greater the similarity, the larger being the number of such 
concepts. Two individual things can be in all points similar 
and yet not be identical. A single thing can be more or less 
identical, which means that some of its elements are the 
same, while others are different. And, of course, in so far as 
elements of a thing are the same, the same abstract concepts 
fit it, while in so far as they are different, other concepts 
have to be applied. Hence only a single individual can be 
more or less identical; different individuals can be only 
more or less similar. Moreover, as Hegel taught us, identity 
always implies difference: identity does not exist unless 
some of the elements of an individual change, that is, be- 
come different. I do not mean merely that identity is not 
noticed apart from difference, but that it does not exist to be 
noticed. In a purely static world things would not be iden- 
tical with themselves ; they would simply be. But this whole 
question of the relation of identity to difference and to 
change will have to be treated more at length when we study 



PERSONAL IDENTITY 43 

the general problem of change and time; what we have pre- 
sented here is for the purpose of making clear the premisses 
of our discussion of personal identity. 

Such being the general nature of identity, let us inquire 
how we can prove it to pertain to experience. Now the 
identity or non-identity of experience is in a peculiarly 
favorable position so far as discovery is concerned. For it 
does not have to be inferred or represented, but can be 
actually found, since the thing to which it pertains, namely 
experience, is always and alone capable of being found in the 
sense in which we have been using this term. Now I claim 
that identity is found in experience. Everybody admits that 
we seem to find it, that we have an " impression " or " feel- 
ing " of it; I claim that this " feeling " is a fact. And I claim 
that the only reason why it is not recognized to be such is 
because it is judged to be illusory on the grounds which we 
have examined and found to be false. It is a fundamental 
principle in the theory of knowledge that the evidence of 
experience must be accepted unless proved to be fallacious 
through conflict with logical principles. And it seems as 
perverse to doubt the identity within experience as it would 
be to doubt that the sky which you are looking at is blue. 
For just as the concept blue has been derived from blue 
experiences and so must apply to the like, so the meaning 
identity has been acquired as a reflex of personal identity 
experiences. It means, aboriginally, a certain feature of 
experience and so must be true of it, just as blue means 
another feature and so must be true of that. Of course, one 
may deny that there is identity within experience, just as 



44 THE SELF AND NATURE 

one may deny that the sky which one is looking at is blue ; 
yet it is impossible not to possess the evidence which con- 
tradicts these assertions; both the blue and the identity are 
in the mind. 

And we must insist that the identity which we find in 
experience is not similarity. When we waken in the morn- 
ing we find ourselves thinking the same thoughts, harassed 
by the same worries, ardent with the same hopes and plans. 
You cannot be true to your experience and say that the 
morrow has brought you similar thoughts and anxieties and 
plans. The sting and the significance alike of your experi- 
ence consist in their identity. You know that you are not 
many selves strung together like beads on a thread, new 
each day or hour or minute; but one self, the same through 
all. 

The task of exhibiting the range of identity within the 
mind is now easy. First we have to find the region of mind 
in which the identity is given. The region in which this is 
certainly the case is the self. Let us seek the identity in 
each of the three great classes of self experiences : thinking, 
interest and feeling. 

The tool of thinking is the concept. The concept is a 
residuum of masses of similar experiences. The act of think- 
ing, judgment, consists of the application of a concept to an 
object. When the object is new, the application of a concept 
to it is a novel event, through which the concept is partly 
changed and enriched; yet not wholly so. For when, for 
example, I recognize a flower as a flower, there is actually 
present in the concept vestiges of countless former flower 



PERSONAL IDENTITY 45 

experiences of which it is a precipitate; and not only is the 
concept partly identical with much of the past, but the 
activity of application is also the same. Even when I em- 
ploy new concepts, it is the one and identical function 
which energizes; the function is, of course, differentiated; 
yet it is the same, nevertheless; for there is present in 
each new judgment the substance of all previous ones. And 
this identity in a function is given in the mind. Suppose 
I am recognizing plants: I judge "rose," "lily," "sweet 
william," each time applying a different concept and judging 
a different object, yet I feel the sameness of the activity of 
thinking throughout. This identity in the apperceptive 
function is very impressive when traveling. During the 
journey we receive countless new impressions, yet because 
we recognize them all, employing a single function continu- 
ally and old concepts in the employment, the experience of 
personal identity is striking through the contrast with the 
novelty of the scenes. 

Identity is given with equal evidence in the volitional 
experiences. Take the simple matter of interest. Suppose I 
start off to the woods to study plants. During the excursion 
I shall study many specimens ; the direction of my interest 
will therefore be constantly changing; yet the interest itself 
will remain the same; and the sameness will be given in the 
interest of studying, just as the difference will be given in the 
difference of the applications. And when in the morning I 
awaken with this interest upon me, identity is present there 
also; for it is the same interest which kept me at my micro- 
scope until late at night and the same which has given direc- 



46 THE SELF AND NATURE 

tion to my whole life. And in saying that the identity in the 
interest is given, I mean that not only is the interest actually 
the same, but that it is experienced as the same, as familiar, 
and that this sameness and familiarity are real identity. 

Since desire is a complex affair involving not only interest 
but also the idea of an object towards which striving is di- 
rected, the identity there is twofold : on the one hand within 
the idea, and on the other, within the striving. Thus the de- 
sire for food involves an idea, the materials of which are 
probably older than any other — some trace of infantile suck- 
ing is present. It is understood, of course, that the intermit- 
tence of the idea of food in the mind does not prejudice its 
real identity. The idea in the new setting is, to be sure, not 
exactly the same as in previous desires, yet it is fundamen- 
tally so. And the element of striving in the desire is essen- 
tially the same ; it has simply re-emerged directed to a new 
object and adherent to a partly new idea. Again, the 
awakening of love is, of course, a novel experience; but each 
new love, although new as love of a new object, contains the 
echoes of all old flames. The familiar instance of personal 
identity, the experience of carrying out a plan, illustrates 
the chief points in our analysis. A plan is first conceived: it 
exists as a striving directed to an action, that is, adherent to 
an idea which means that action. Now when the plan is 
carried out, there is an experience of identity; for there is 
identity in the experience: the plan enters bodily into the 
action, the selfsame plan conceived long ago perhaps; the 
action exists in the mind as the incarnation of the plan, as 
containing it in its substance ; and the striving, the years- 



PERSONAL IDENTITY 47 

old striving, works itself out and feels itself the same in its 
new shape as fulfilled. As for emotions and pleasures, they 
are identical in correspondence with the identity in the striv- 
ings of which they are respectively phases and fulfillments. 

The fact that in our discussion of personal identity we 
have not yet referred to memory will doubtless impress some 
readers. But this is no oversight. The importance of mem- 
ory for personal identity has, I believe, been exaggerated. 
Memory enters into the identity of the self experiences in so 
far, chiefly, as they are connected with imagery. The activi- 
ties of desiring and thinking are, as we have seen, entwined 
with images inherent in the ideas of the things thought of or 
desired. Originally all strivings and satisfactions are em- 
bedded in sense experiences ; but the latter, in passing, 
leave replicas of themselves, the store of which is increased 
by every new experience. Now these traces, although con- 
tinually being lost, are never lost completely; they are for- 
ever re-emerging, and a central core abides. They penetrate 
the activities, making up the substance of concepts and 
representative ideas. It is in this way that the activities of 
thinking and desiring involve memory. But memory in the 
sense of remembering past events is not involved. For in 
remembering, the images have a meaning; they refer back to 
past experiences of which they are a survival. In general, 
however, images do not represent the experiences from 
which they have been derived, but are employed away from 
their base to represent new things. This is evidently true of 
the concept; the concept does not know the experiences 
from which its imaginal material came; it knows other 



48 THE SELF AND NATURE 

things — the things to which it is applied. The same is true 
of the ideas employed in desire; their substance is certainly 
past experiences, but they do not represent their originals; 
they are given a new intent, a direction to the future. The 
central peculiarity of remembering, on the other hand, con- 
sists just in the fact that the image means the experience of 
which it is itself a derivative. It is this which gives to mem- 
ory its warmth and intimacy, so different from the knowl- 
edge of past events not belonging to one's own life. The 
image and the thing which it remembers are, of course, not 
the same; yet the image is a child of the thing, its duplicate, 
and the old attitudes and feelings towards it are revived in 
the remembering idea. In this way the past self is present in 
the self which remembers. But although remembering is a 
vivid instance of personal identity, it is by no means the only 
case of it. During intense work, for example, there may be 
little or no remembering; yet, because of the persistence of 
purpose and the attitudes required by the work, there is a 
large share of identity ; and this is experienced — there is 
a keen sense of it. 

So far we have reviewed two regions of the mind in our 
search for identity: the activities which constitute the self, 
and the images with which the activities are so closely bound 
that they are almost inseparable by analysis and are hardly 
separable in reality. We have found that real identity exists 
in these regions. But what of sense experience ? The com- 
plete discussion of this will come later when we study the 
nature of physical things. Yet there is a phase of the matter 
which belongs here. For, whether there is identity in sensa- 



PERSONAL IDENTITY 49 

tions or not, there is identity in certain concrete sense experi- 
ences. In so far as the latter are perceptions of familiar 
things, they contain the images of former experiences of 
these things; their familiarity is due largely to this source. 
The presence of these identical images explains the seeming 
identity in things really new; there is real identity in the 
perceptions, but the extent of it is misunderstood. Every 
concrete perception, even if of a new thing, contains an ele- 
ment of identity; for, so far as it is recognized as being of a 
definite kind, there are present in it revived images of similar 
objects, on the basis of which recognition takes place. Of 
course the identity here is an identity in the images and not 
in the sensations, so that it is really covered by our discus- 
sions of the previous paragraph; yet it is so closely con- 
nected with sensation that it may well be said to belong to 
sense experience. This element of identity in perception 
does not, however, involve remembering. For example, 
every morning when I see my desk anew, it is familiar to me ; 
I find an identity in it; yet I do not think of occasions when 
I saw it on previous days; I simply have in mind elements 
of former experiences, the residua of old memories, which 
simply are, without representing the former total experiences 
of which they were a part. 

From our development of the subject it is clear that per- 
sonal identity can be more or less. It is usually greater be- 
tween phases of experience which are near in time than 
between those which are remote. The crises of life, like the 
changes from childhood to maturity, the entrance upon new 
work, marriage and the birth of children, involve grave 



SO THE SELF AND NATURE 

alterations. The persistence or disturbance of the coenaes- 
thesia is supposed to be important; but far more so are 
purpose, interest, memory. From birth to death there is a 
continual acquisition of new experiences; a partial pres- 
ervation of these through the residua of memory; a re- 
emergence of old activities; the loss again of these; the 
irreparable loss of some; until finally at death the entire 
structure disintegrates. Permanence and change, adven- 
turous seeking for the new and a tragic holding on to the old 
or effort to escape the old ; self -making and self-mending — 
such is the life of the mind. Throughout there is the thread 
of identity; the old man remains in some respects the 
same as the child. Yet the amount of this identity varies 
on different occasions. It is great when a man puts all his 
emotional energy into some task which requires the use of 
his whole past experience, the total resources of his memory 
and learning; then, as we say, he is most himself; it is little 
when, ,in a light moment of gaiety, he forgets himself, feed- 
ing on new impressions. It is great again in constancy and 
continuity of work and affection, and less in disloyalties and 
infidelities. 

We usually call a man another man when he fails to recog- 
nize himself — when he applies to his experience a different 
concept of self from the one which we have been accustomed 
to. Since the material upon which the concept of self is 
based is always our plans, memories, beliefs, the failure to 
subsume oneself under the same concept of self implies the 
gravest alterations. Yet identity may exist here as else- 
where, even when not recognized. The application of a dis- 



PERSONAL IDENTITY SI 

tinct concept of self to the self is an intellectual process of 
identification precisely similar to any other, the only dif- 
ference being that the object recognized lies within the mind 
and so is the most accessible and certain of all objects ; yet 
if the actual identity between one phase of experience and 
another is not great, the old concept may not now seem 
applicable. There may still be identity ; experience may in 
some measure be familiar still; yet the strangeness may be 
greater than the familiarity and there may be lacking the 
necessary power of discernment in order to disentangle the 
one from the other. The poor man may not know whether 
he is Sam Jones or another; and if he does not know, how 
can we ? The changes in the idea of oneself are a good indi- 
cation of the transformations of one's experience ; for the 
idea is built up parallel with and as a reflex of the process of 
self-creation and preservation which is life. 

Personal identity is, however, no more identical with self 
identification than blue is with the concept of blue. The 
most ordinary experiences give evidence of this. When we 
waken in the morning we feel ourselves to be the same with- 
out any overt assimilation of the new experience to the idea 
of ourselves; the idea may not arise at all. There are times, 
as we have seen, when the idea of self is in abeyance, as 
when we work quietly; yet there is a sense of familiarity 
which pervades all experience and is the abiding identity 
within it. Yet when the idea of self is in mind we cannot 
apply it to another self; for its root and substance is just 
oneself and no other. One's sense or feeling of identity with 
one's past is thus no illusion or empty boast; for it is the 



52 THE SELF AND NATURE 

having in mind of the real identity, however small, between 
one's present and one's past. The false self identifications of 
the insane are not cases unfavorable to our view. For there 
the psychic life is so awry that there is little real identity 
between the man's present and his past; hence he does not 
recognize himself. His identification of himself with Napo- 
leon does not, of course, imply any real identity between the 
two individuals; it is simply a false application of his con- 
cept of Napoleon, the ineptness of which the poor man has 
not wit enough to perceive. Give to him even a little power 
of discernment and he could not make the application. 

Let me emphasize, by way of summary, the contrast be- 
tween my view of personal identity and the ordinary one. 
Mine is a doctrine of the real identity of the self and the 
recurrence of its elements; the other is a doctrine of illusion 
and substitution of elements. According to the latter, the 
self is never identical with its past, because its elements are 
continually dying away, yet is always under the illusion of 
identity, because the lost elements are replaced by similar 
ones. According to the view of this chapter, on the other 
hand, the judgment which the self makes about itself is a 
true judgment; for, although its elements are continually 
being lost, they are found again ; they perish indeed, but not 
without hope; their death is often followed by resurrec- 
tion. For us also, the self is a fragile thing, broken by its 
environment and torn by internal tensions; yet for us, it is 
capable of mending itself, and with its own fragments. 



CHAPTER III 

THE METAPHYSICS OF PERCEPTION 

THE self, as we observed in our first chapter, is in con- 
tact with and interwoven in content. A large part of 
this content is what is ordinarily called sensation. Now sen- 
sation is at least a part of things. If we lay aside all theories 
of what things really are and consider them only as they are 
given to us, we find them a complex of sense elements. Take 
the rose as an example: the rose is given to us a group of 
sense qualities — red, shapely, soft, sweet smelling. Of 
course, all that we mean by the rose is not present in sensa- 
tion ; there is the part which is not seen, and there is the 
prick of the thorns which we carefully avoid. Yet these lat- 
ter, although not really present in sensation, are so, as it were 
vicariously, through images. There is nothing of the thing 
which we ever find that is not a sensation or image. 

We open our eyes and are face to face with things. In per- 
ception we are in direct contact with the physical world; 
nothing intervenes. Perception is, first, a contact of the 
self with a sensuous reality, and second, a representation 
through idea of other sense elements which might be given. 
Some sensation is always the nucleus of the perception, but 
the larger part is a meaning. And last, perception involves 
recognition — the given sense elements are subsumed under 
a concept, whereby their relations to other things, their 

S3 



54 THE SELF AND NATURE 

place in the whole, is fixed. Test this description by the per- 
ception of the rose. When you see the rose, certain visual 
elements enter into the already constituted whole of your 
mind; they come into contact with other sensations there, 
with your feelings, interests, and thoughts; forthwith there 
arise into this whole images which mean further rose ele- 
ments not given; finally, the structure thus formed is a 
familiar, a recognized thing — a rose. As a result of this 
process, the mind is enriched and expanded; it has acquired 
new elements, and part of its old self has been reborn — 
sentiments that cling to roses, systems of botanical concepts 
revive. 

Although in perception the self is in direct contact with 
things, they are no part of it. I find sense elements to be 
other than myself with the same evidence that I find the 
identity of myself with the activities. It is impossible to 
argue this otherness away. Perception is a contact with an 
alien reality — a chance embrace of strangers, involving no 
fatal entanglements. Look again to the red of the rose or 
to its shape and texture. They are not you. And consider 
how they stand there self-possessed and independent. They 
have no need of your emotion or of your uncertain judgment 
and regard. You may interfere with, but you cannot deter- 
mine, the sense elements which are the rose; they follow 
after their own nature, not after yours. You may cultivate 
or neglect, let bloom or pluck to deck your chamber; but 
what will ensue you will have to learn from them; you can- 
not determine it for them. If the rose is independent of you, 
so are you of it. Contact with it may leave you with a vivid 



THE METAPHYSICS OF PERCEPTION 55 

image and no less vivid emotion, but you will go your way 
much as if you had never found it on your path. 

There are, of course, the familiar cases where this other- 
ness seems to be overcome. Yet it is really never sur- 
mounted; what occurs is a union of the self with sensation, 
an involution of the one in the other; but union implies 
difference, not identity. In the aesthetic experience I may 
find myself mixed with the blue of the painting or lost in the 
mazes of its lines, but the poignancy of the experience de- 
pends, as in love, upon being intimate with something radi- 
cally other than oneself. Were the lines and colors a part of 
the self, there would be nothing extraordinary and startling 
about the experience. The apparent selfness of sensation is 
due in every case to the admixture of the activities, and dis- 
appears as soon as they are withdrawn. The semblance of 
activity in sensation is due to the presence of the same fac- 
tors. Thus lines may vibrate, colors may have vitality — 
when emotion is felt into them. Perception is never, as we 
know, the mere existence of a sense element in the mind; it 
always involves, in addition, the creation of a meaning. The 
sense elements in perception are recognized, interpreted, 
employed as signs; but recognition, interpretation, the 
signitive function are activities which belong to the self. 
Here, I believe, is the explanation of the subjective idealistic 
fallacy — it rests on an insufficient analysis of the percep- 
tual experience, on a failure to distinguish the active from 
the passive elements. 

The theory that the unity of mind is due to a transcen- 
dental ego may also be responsible for the belief that sensa- 



56 THE SELF AND NATURE 

tion is a part of the self. This we have already disposed of 
in our chapter on The Self and the Mind. But let us con- 
sider the matter anew, with especial reference to perception, 
and let us seek to get at the facts. Suppose, once more, I turn 
my head and see the rose. New color elements will enter into 
the already constituted whole of the mind of which the self 
is a part. What sort of relation will be effected between them 
and it ? Now I submit that if we follow the facts and not 
some preconceived theory of them, we can best describe the 
relation as an adjunction, entrance, contact, implying by the 
use of these terms, (i) that the new elements come from 
without the mind, not from within ; (2) that there is nothing 
within the mind that can explain their nature; (3) that 
they come as strangers, possessed of that otherness upon 
which we have already laid emphasis, possessed besides of 
their own individuality and identity; (4) that the already 
constituted whole of mind has no need of them, for when I 
turn my head away and they leave the mind, it continues to 
exist without any large alteration. 

Of course, as I linger to look at the rose, its relation to the 
self becomes more intimate; it had already awakened the 
activities of recognition and interpretation ; now it becomes 
suffused with emotion and interest; it passes into the sub- 
stance of the self. But the primary relation is adjunction, 
contact; upon this is based the more interior relations. And 
no matter how closely the activities may twine about the 
sense elements of the rose, the latter retain their funda- 
mental otherness and their own individuality and sub- 
sistence. 



THE METAPHYSICS OF PERCEPTION S7 

Again, I do not mean to imply that a sense element can 
come into contact with the self and not, in some fashion, 
transform it. The modification of the self of the moment 
may indeed be very profound. Not only are certain activi- 
ties, like recognition and interest, immediately and almost 
always evoked, thus expanding the self, but its whole pattern 
may be altered; certain elements will be driven out, while 
others will acquire a new prominence. And the change is not 
wholly one-sided, confined to the self alone; it affects the 
perceived sense elements as well. The clearness or unclear- 
ness of sense elements is a character which accrues to them 
only as elements of mind ; their suffusion with images effects 
other transformations. For example, through the connection 
of the visual elements with the images which mean the re- 
lated touch object, the former may acquire some of the size 
of the latter — the man whom I see far off may seem to be as 
large as if I were close to him ; or the blue in the picture may 
seem to be cold through the association of images of cold. 
But these changes do not involve any loss of identity, or 
dependence on the self. 

Since perception is a contact of the self with sense ele- 
ments, the association to them of memories, judgments and 
feelings, and since this relation is of the character described, 
it is obvious that things do not depend for their existence on 
perception. Sensations must first exist before they can be 
perceived. Yet, although independent of perception, sensa- 
tions are not independent of the body. For example, the 
quality and form of visual sensations depend upon the 
structure of the eye. The failure to distinguish the depend- 



58 THE SELF AND NATURE 

ence of sensations on the body from dependence on percep- 
tion is one of the chief reasons, I believe, why so little has 
been accomplished towards clearing up these problems. 
Yet the confusion is a natural one, since the perception of 
a sense element is also dependent on the body — although 
upon a different part — and is nearly simultaneous with the 
existence of the element. 

The partial control which the self may exert over sensa- 
tions may also be mistaken for dependence on perception. 
For in so far as the self has control over the body, it may 
co-operate in determining the existence of sensations. For 
example, by directing the adjustment of the sense organs, our 
interests are factors in the determination of the existence 
and course of visual, auditory and tactile sensations. But 
this is not a determination by perception. For, even in these 
cases, the sensations are first created through the sensory 
process before they are perceived. Perception — the con- 
tact of sensations with feelings and ideas — is an event 
following upon, but not determinative of, their existence. 

Obviously, while sensations are dependent upon the body, 
they are not created by it. If I close my eye, visual sensa- 
tions disappear; but the mere existence of the eye will not 
serve to produce color. And there are functional relations 
between sensations which, although the body is always in- 
volved as a third party, cannot be explained in terms of the 
body alone. For example, if I put a red shade on my lamp, 
the hue of all the colors in my room will be changed. More- 
over, the body itself — which is also a complex of sensations 
— is functionally related to other sense elements. It, too, 



THE METAPHYSICS OF PERCEPTION 59 

for example, would change its hue along with all the other 
things in the room. The empirical physical world consists of 
masses of sense elements functionally related among them- 
selves, and above all to one part of themselves, bodies. By 
functional relation in this connection I mean that a change 
of one is correlated with a change in another, or that the 
appearance of one is sequent upon the appearance of 
another. Nothing else is given. 

The first objection commonly raised against a theory such 
as this is that it makes impossible the simultaneous per- 
ception by two or more people of the same thing. For how, 
if sensations, which are never the same in different minds, 
are the things perceived, is common perception possible ? 
For example, the electric light globe in my mind is elliptical 
in shape, while in yours it is circular. Or to me who am near, 
the meadow is green, while to you who are far away, it is 
violet. How can the same thing be at once violet and green, 
or elliptical and round ? 

The removal of this objection depends upon the realiza- 
tion that it is based upon a preconceived theory of things. 
It is assumed, namely, that the things which we see can have 
only one size, shape, and color at a given moment; when, as 
a matter of observation, they possess a multitude of these, 
as many as are seen from any so-called point of view. The 
globe is at once elliptical and round, the meadow is at once 
violet and green, if it is seen so. All the so-called appear- 
ances of a thing are real. But there are usually one or more 
particular aspects, those where the thing can be handled, 
where it can be brought into bodily contact with the organ- 



60 THE SELF AND NATURE 

ism, which, because of their practical importance, are empha- 
sized over all the others and judged real, while the rest are 
degraded to the rank of mere subjective signs of these. 1 
Thus, in order to adjust the globe, one has to act through 
tactile circular sensations, but not through visual elliptical 
ones; and, in order to pluck the leaf, one has to act through 
green touch sensations rather than through violet ones; 
hence, the former are viewed as real qualities of the object, 
of which the latter are thought to be mere appearances. But 
surely all sensations are equally real while they last; practi- 
cal importance may determine our interest in them, but it 
cannot determine their reality. Things have no such 
simplicity as common sense supposes. 

We are evidently brought face to face with the general 
problem of the identity and unity of things. To take the 
former first: The identity of things belongs, in the first place, 
to their sensuous substance. Sensations shift and disappear ; 
yet they also reappear and abide. The red of the rose is the 
same red today as it was yesterday, despite its intermittence 
over night. In our discussion of personal identity, we showed 
that an activity may be destroyed, and yet reborn the 
same. This is equally true of a sensation. When it re- 
emerges, it is changed, but identity may exist despite dif- 
ference. There is, indeed, no substance in things except that 
of their sensuous qualities. This is true of all sensations; of a 
sound or a perfume. The vibratory, and other such facts 
which men of science regard as the substance behind sensa- 
tion are only further sensuous elements of the whole, or else 
1 See James: Principles of Psychology, Chapters xx and xxi. 



THE METAPHYSICS OF PERCEPTION 6 1 

mere symbolic images with only a subjective and pragmatic 
value. The existence of any sensation depends, without 
doubt, upon the co-operation of countless facts. Yet every 
sensation is real while it lasts and may come again after it 
has disappeared. 

We cannot, therefore, be said to perceive the same thing 
in the sense that we are at any moment in contact with the 
same sense elements. The sensory content of people's minds 
in perception is always different; in your mind the globe is 
circular, in mine it is elliptical. Only if you could occupy 
my position in space and possess my organs of vision could 
you have in mind the same sensations that I have. Never- 
theless, we rightly feel that we are perceiving the same thing; 
for we are in contact with parts of the same complex object. 
We perceive the same thing, despite the differences in the 
contents of our minds, just as we sit in the same room 
although we occupy different chairs. 

Although this identity in the stuff of things is their real 
identity, we often treat things which are merely similar as if 
they were the same. For example, when a number of people 
attend the performance of a symphony, we say that they 
hear " the same symphony." But, as a matter of fact, the 
sound contents of their minds are different — different, for 
example, in intensity and timbre, according to the positions 
in the hall occupied by the auditors, and other factors. It is 
possible for the same individual sound to be now intense, 
now weak, but it is not possible for the same sound to be at 
once intense and weak. The various people in the hall are 
therefore in contact with different individual sounds, similar 



62 THE SELF AND NATURE 

in many ways, yet numerically different. Is there then no 
sense in saying that they hear the same symphony ? It all 
depends upon what we mean by the symphony. If we mean 
by the symphony a universal, a type, then it is true that they 
all hear the same symphony. The same musical composition, 
in this sense, can be heard simultaneously in New York and 
Boston by many different people. But the identical object 
which they perceive is not a physical thing at all, but, I 
repeat, an ideal or type. Here, as always, the perception 
of the ideal and typical takes place through the concrete 
and individual ; the same universal symphony is perceived 
through the similar, but numerically different, sounds in the 
minds of the various auditors. 

Now, in large measure, the sameness of the object even 
in ordinary perception is of just this nature. When we say 
that we perceive the same rose, we do not so much mean that 
we are in contact with parts of a single region of the physical 
world as that we are undergoing experiences of the same 
type. We are seeing the " same rose " just as we are " hav- 
ing the same pleasure " in it. The contents of our minds are 
numerically different; yet they are similar in various ways, 
and adherent to them are thoughts which mean a sort of 
typical rose, which is the schematic invariant of all the 
concrete phenomena of the rose. Visual perception is a 
process of at least twofold complexity: first, a contact 
with some of the visual elements of the thing; second, a 
representation through idea of the type to which the thing 
belongs. Even the common thing perceived is, I repeat, 
largely a type, but a type functioning through actual 



THE METAPHYSICS OF PERCEPTION 63 

aspects of the concrete thing with which the self is in 
contact. 

It may be objected to this comparison of ordinary per- 
ception with aesthetic perception that, in the latter, the type 
or ideal is determined by aesthetic feelings which can acquire 
permanence through record in a score; whereas, in ordinary 
perception, there are no values through which a type could 
be established. There is no standard for rose — or chair — 
experiences, it may be said. Yet, as a matter of fact, where- 
ever there is identification, there is the thought of a type, and 
memory plays there precisely the recording role of a score ; 
and ordinary perceptions are full of the values of use and 
curiosity. There may be a difference of precision in the two 
cases, but only as a matter of degree; and, in the case of the 
sharply defined types of scientific perception, the advantage 
is probably with the non-aesthetic. No one knows what the 
absolutely ideal and typical performance of the symphony 
is; so, similarly, no one ever gets a complete perception of a 
thing, ever comes into real or, through representation, into 
vicarious contact with its infinite possibilities of sensation. 
What our senses allow us to get into touch with or our 
imagination to picture is only a fragment. Nevertheless, in 
our dealings with common things we have pretty definite 
ideas of some of the possibilities of human experience, and 
the man of science has ideas of the highest precision ; such 
ideas represent the types of things. The elaboration of these 
ideas, in order to make them more adequate to the possibili- 
ties of human experience, is exactly the task of natural 
science. 



64 THE SELF AND NATURE 

The extent to which perception is more than the mere pos- 
session in the mind of parts of existing things, and contains 
representative elements, is plain when we consider how large 
a part is played by memory and expectation. When I per- 
ceive an electric light I inevitably think of lighting it — 
that is, I represent a non-existent future action upon it and 
the sensations which would result; if I am an electrician, I 
may think of the manufacture of it, that is, of its non-exist- 
ent past history. Such memories and expectations enter into 
the thought of the type of things. The type always extends 
beyond the present, back into the past and forward into the 
future. The type of things is a complex of true propositions 
about their present, past and future being. The metaphysi- 
cal status of these types will be the topic of a future chapter; 
it is necessary at this point only to call attention to the large 
share which they have in the object of perception. The 
object of perception is never so much the actual physical 
thing as the truth about the thing. 

The recognition of the importance of the type in percep- 
tion has given rise to the idea that perception is largely a 
falsification of the reality of things — a view maintained by 
a thinker whose doctrine of perception is very much like our 
own. But this is a misrepresentation of the situation. It is, 
indeed, true that the type is no part of the sensuous reality 
of things. It is also true that our representations of the 
type are largely determined by practical motives. We 
represent of the total truth about things only so much as 
bears upon our life. Yet the partiality of our representa- 
tions, the human limitations of them, do not make them 



THE METAPHYSICS OF PERCEPTION 65 

necessarily deceitful. It is, of course, easy to mistake the 
part for the whole, especially where our human conceits are 
concerned ; but the intent of partial knowledge is not to take 
itself for omniscience. It is also true that a large part of 
scientific knowledge is expressed in purely symbolic terms 
or in the form of mechanical images to which no sensuous 
reality literally corresponds. But it is always possible to 
translate these symbols into the sensuous experience which 
is the real object represented. The unwary, it must be ad- 
mitted, are often led astray into thinking that the symbols 
picture real objects; but once this error is corrected, the 
genuine metaphysical truth embodied in scientific formulas 
and concepts becomes patent. 

The theory of things which we have been advocating 
requires the abandonment of the common sense notion of 
their unity. This notion has been developed by a process of 
exclusion and simplification, with the method of which we 
have already become familiar. Certain aspects or parts of 
the thing are rejected because they are practically irrelevant, 
leaving a relatively simple remainder more easily handled 
by the mind. But, as we have seen, the thing owns all of its 
aspects, every shape, color, size or other quality that can be 
perceived. All the supposed conflicts among them disappear 
as soon as we abandon the notion of the superior reality of 
some over the others. They are all on the same level, all 
parts of the thing, falling easily within its wide domain. 

But if the thing is so hospitable and inclusive, in what 
sense is it one at all ? Ten people in the room who look at 
the electric light globe have in mind ten different complexes 



66 THE SELF AND NATURE 

of visual sensations; how then can they belong to the one 
object ? The essential unity is that of causality. A single 
act or process will make them all disappear or reappear. 
To be sure, one of them may disappear without affecting 
the existence of the others, as when, for example, I close my 
eyes; yet opening my eyes will not restore my globe, nor 
will open eyes in themselves guarantee the existence of the 
other nine globes. The existence of any sensation depends 
upon two sets of conditions — one within the body, another 
outside of the body. The former set is a prerequisite for 
the existence of the sensation in the single mind; the latter 
is a co-operating cause of all the sensations in the different 
minds which we attribute to one thing. That there is a 
single determinant without the body for all the ten com- 
plexes of globe sensations is clear from the simultaneity and 
inclusiveness of its effect — all at once and together the sen- 
sations will disappear if some person breaks the bulb. A 
thing, therefore, consists of all sensations under the control 
of a single determinant outside of the body. Or to put the 
matter the other way round — sensations belong to one thing 
when they are all under a single extra-bodily control. 

There are, of course, certain sensations, such as nausea or 
those which come from the joints, which seem not to have the 
doubleness of determination characteristic of most sensa- 
tions, but, on the contrary, to be determined from within 
the body alone. Yet careful investigation would prove 
that even in such cases there is a twofold control, only 
by different determinants within the one region of the 
body. 



THE METAPHYSICS OF PERCEPTION 67 

In talking about the determination of sensations we are 
readily led beyond the bounds of the given. Sensations are 
given, but the nature of that which determines them outside 
of the body is certainly not given. Given, as we have said, 
are only the sensations. Yet, that they are not controlled 
wholly from within, is certainly given; it is only the what or 
nature of this control which is not given. Solely by means 
of hypotheses can we get any idea of this. And the natural 
hypo thesis to make is the one which has been made so often, 
and which we shall defend later on, that the control is like 
that which we ourselves exert. For, as we have seen, we do, 
to a certain extent, determine the course and existence of 
sensations. I can destroy sensations; I can close my eyes 
and annihilate a whole group of them; I can take bow 
and violin and create another group. In the latter 
case I determine sensations not only within my own 
mind, but in the minds of others as well. Of course, in 
neither case am I the sole determinant of what happens ; for- 
eign controls must co-operate. But now, the hypothesis is 
precisely this, that the nature of the co-operant foreign con- 
trols is like that which I exert within my own mind, and to a 
certain extent within the minds of other men. It is some 
purpose or interest which determines the closure of the eyes 
and the annihilation of the visual sensations ; it is some pur- 
pose or interest which determines the existence of the musi- 
cal sounds. And hence we suppose that, in addition to our 
own activities, co-operating with, or frustrating, or acting 
independently of them, there are other activities, not ours, 
playing with and determining the sensations in our minds. 



68 THE SELF AND NATURE 

Just as with bow and violin, with brush and canvas, we 
may make music or paint pictures for ourselves, so — shall I 
say nature ? — sings for itself and for us, too, in the sound 
of the brook, and paints pictures for itself and for us in 
every landscape that we see. 

Does nature contain any other sensations than those 
which are produced through the activities of the body in 
co-operation with foreign controls ? Of course, by the nature 
of the case, none other than these can come within the mind. 
Yet there are good reasons, I believe, for thinking that there 
are others. The sense organs, through which the sensations 
that we know are determined, are special differentiations of 
a material of like nature with themselves. There is good 
reason, therefore, for supposing that they mediate only part of 
the total number of sensations produced in connection with 
the body. Moreover, the law of continuity forbids us from 
believing that our sense life is a sudden development, that 
it has had no history in the evolution of the organism. 
If we ascribe sensation to the lower forms, of life which pos- 
sess no organs of special sense, we must ascribe the same to 
the whole body. And the same principle of continuity for- 
bids us from stopping here. The organism is itself an out- 
growth of what we call the inorganic world; and consists of 
exactly the same materials. Hence, just as we infer from 
the existence of the bodies of our fellow men and of animals 
to the existence of their sensations, so, it seems to me, we can 
infer to the existence of further sensations in nature from 
those which we actually perceive. In both cases we infer from 
the existence of sensations which we perceive to the existence 



THE METAPHYSICS OF PERCEPTION 69 

of those which we do not perceive. From the existence of an 
eye — a group of sensations in my own mind — I infer the 
existence of visual sensations in the mind of my fellow. 
Nothing else of his eye is given to me or real for me except 
my own sensations. Well, similarly, I have given countless 
other sensations — the body of nature, let me call them — 
and from these, I think I can infer others. Only the tiniest 
part of the sense world is, I believe, given to us in percep- 
tion. What the rest is like, we, to be sure, cannot know. Yet 
we are justified, I think, in judging the whole by the part. 
The visual sensations which enter into the mind depend, of 
course, upon the eye; yet I cannot help thinking that when 
the man of science talks about light he means something 
more than a symbol for possible human sensations — that 
his vibrations in the aether correspond with actual sensa- 
tions like our own. Nature is, I think, full of warmth and 
cold, pressures and touches and colors unperceived by man, 
and doubtless full also of countless other sensations of a kind 
unlike anything which we know. 

The hospitality which we ascribe to the thing destroys its 
reputed seclusion and involves a complexity and neighborli- 
ness undreamed of by common sense. Since a thing owns 
every aspect equally, it does not have the remoteness from 
other things which is one of the chief grounds upon which 
common sense accords to it a simple and separate existence. 
The sun, for example, is not only where science locates it, 
but also in the intervening space, and at the point where I 
see it — at the eye. One may, of course, distinguish what is 
called the real sun from these visual phenomena ; but, how- 



JO THE SELF AND NATURE 

ever useful this procedure may be practically, it cannot be 
done without question metaphysically. On the other hand, 
in view of the actual solidarity of things, one may refuse to 
distinguish between one thing and another. There is, it may 
be said, only a single thing, the universe; what are called 
separate things are only parts of this, isolated by us for rea- 
sons chiefly practical. And there is truth in this view, which 
science, and not metaphysics, has been teaching us for the 
last century. There is a mutual dependence of sense quali- 
ties making of the physical world a single whole. Neverthe- 
less, there are grounds other than practical for distinguishing 
between one part and another. There is a differential dis- 
tribution of qualities; here it is hot, there cold; here a sweet 
odor, there a sour; red and blue are not on the same, but on 
different points. Such regional differences in the distri- 
bution of sensations are real. Moreover, there is greater 
solidarity between the causal determination of certain parts 
than of others. There is a greater solidarity between the 
elements of one organic body, for example, than between 
those of two ; a change is more immediately and pervasively 
effective within the single body than between the two. This 
objective unification of things is the basis of the subjective 
unification of them through the purposes which they serve. 
The difference between things is a difference in the qualita- 
tive pattern and causal interdependence of the elements of 
the whole. In accordance with its own harmonic laws, the 
universe composes sense elements in multitudinous figures. 
Doubtless, there is a basal and pervasive rhythm; yet, just 
as we rightly distinguish the different phrases in a musical 



THE METAPHYSICS OF PERCEPTION 7 1 

composition, so we are justified in distinguishing the many 
parts of the one whole. In our chapter on space we shall 
study again, for a final statement, the individuality and 
unity of things. 

The doctrine of this chapter should recommend itself not 
only to the reason, but to the emotions. For what is the 
thing which you love and cherish ? It is not a heap of ions 
which you have never seen ; it is no bit of extension robbed 
of color and odor; it is not even some possessor of soul-life 
too simple for sympathy with your human affections. It is 
the phenomenal thing which you love; the possessor of 
color and outline and odor ; the appearing thing which you 
can see and touch and smell. The familiar haunt that you 
love is not some practical or scientific reality behind that 
which has given itself to your eye and hand, but the thou- 
sand views and perspectives with their every shadow and 
change of hue. These you love; these you find fair. The 
dramatic background of our human life, that which enters 
into emotion, finds record in painting and poem and history, 
is the given thing, the so-called appearance — which is the 
reality. And if, as in common sense, you admit the validity 
of the practical motives in determining the criterion of 
reality, why should you not admit to at least an equal right 
the interests of affection and beauty ? 



CHAPTER IV 

THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 

IN our last chapter we studied the relation of the self to the 
external world given in perception. Another, and to most 
minds, more striking relation is that of the self to the body. 
That we should find ourselves in the midst of a bright and 
sounding and odorous reality, immersed in it, gathering 
from it satisfaction and sorrow, becomes strange to the re- 
flective thought of certain moods, but stranger still seems 
the fact that the presence of the self in the world should be 
conditioned by one small fact in that world — the body. 

Let us approach the problem through an examination of 
the oldest theory in the field, one which today has acquired 
a new prominence — the instrumental theory. 

According to this theory, the body is the tool of the mind. 
In sawing wood, I make use of a saw — and of arm and 
hand ; the latter, from the point of view of the realization of 
my purpose, are as much pure instrument as the former. 
Or in the manufacture of anything, when one's interest is 
fixed upon the material and the purpose to be achieved 
through it, the body which manipulates seems like any tool 
which one might employ. Again, in all desire, which involves 
the separation of the idea of the end from the fact desired, 
the body may easily be regarded as just the first link in a 
chain of means and instruments intervening. Not only the 
muscular apparatus, but the sense organs also appear to be 

72 



THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 73 

interpretable in this way: if I have the desire to hear or see 
something, eye and ear look like mere means to the end of 
these experiences. Finally, in the realms of memory, imagi- 
nation and thought, I seem to live independent both of the 
body and of sensation; yet when I desire contact with 
the sense world, the body is there for this end ; just as the 
musician, tiring of the music which he hears in his dreams, 
may employ a lyre upon which to execute heard melodies. 

Yet if this be the relation of the body to the self, the query 
is inevitable — why is the body necessary at all ? If the 
soul can manipulate the body to its ends, why cannot it 
make use of things with equal directness and without the 
intervention of the body ? This question arises not only in 
the minds of objectors to the theory, but in the minds of its 
advocates also. The body seems to be a pure superfluity. 
The possibility of a naked action upon matter and an exist- 
ence independent of the body haunts them in their dreams. 
And so this conception, instead of making the relationship 
more perspicuous, excites a new wonder. 

An indispensable tool would seem to be something more 
than a mere tool. We know of none other that cannot be 
duplicated. A tool which another cannot use is again a 
unique instrument. Why, we ask, is this particular soul 
tied to this particular body on pain of inefficacy ? For many 
of our purposes the body of another would be a fitter instru- 
ment than our own, why, then, if it be a mere tool, can we not 
use it ? And, last, a tool is something which the user makes; 
but no man has made his body. The individual is endowed 
at birth with structures preformed for the exercise of func- 



74 THE SELF AND NATURE 

tion. As the function is exercised these structures develop, 
the development being correlated with the refinement of the 
former. But never does the function manufacture its organs. 
Only recently are we beginning to understand the mechan- 
ism of the body; yet with all our knowledge we are inca- 
pable of constructing its simplest forms. It is absurd, 
therefore, to suppose that, previous to the acquirement of 
this knowledge, previous even to birth, we could have con- 
structed it. Plainly then, if the soul has built up the body, 
the soul must be a larger and wiser being than the man whom 
we know. And by the soul as a builder is usually meant such 
a wiser force. This force, we are told, constructs the body 
for the use of its offspring, responding always to the latter's 
needs. Hence, the individual, as we know him, always has 
instruments ready at his service. We sometimes find, al- 
ready constructed by another, just the tool that we require. 
The relation between soul and body may be an instance of 
this. Yet this proffered solution of the difficulty only 
pushes it back in time, but does not solve it. We now put 
the query to the constructive soul — why have you tied 
your creature to his instrument ? If you yourself could act 
directly upon matter, why cannot he ? 

A part of the difficulty may be removed by admitting the 
large sensuous element in the soul's life. After all, the primal 
interests of the soul are not in things, but in the body, and the 
fundamental values are immediately realized through the 
activities of the body, not in things lying without the body. 
The activity of eating is the animal's original good, not the 
preparation of food; the satisfaction of sexual craving, not 



THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 75 

the courting of the female. The animal first moves in order 
to move rather than to attain anything through moving. It 
does not eat in order to live, generate in order to perpetuate, 
move in order to appropriate; but eats, loves and moves, for 
eating, loving and moving. The original locus of all interests 
is the body; the interest in external things is derivative, 
being transferred from the body. That which co-operates 
in bodily satisfaction acquires irradiated values ; because in 
order to eat I must have food, and in order to love I must 
have an object, these latter become radiant; they have no 
value in themselves, but only through needs, which are 
bodily. It is not strange that the energies of the soul are 
spent chiefly in protecting, housing, clothing, feeding and 
finding a mate for its body, since the body's activities are 
the direct source of most of its satisfactions. 

Hence, to the question why the soul is tied to the body, 
one might answer, because its interests are primarily in the 
body. And by body we mean, of course, not the hypotheti- 
cal system of atoms constructed by the scientists, but the 
sensuous reality given in our experience. Just as different 
instruments are assigned to different people in an orchestra 
in order that they may make music of various colors, so 
particular bodies are given to souls in order that they may 
realize the values potential to their activities. The construc- 
tive soul, we may suppose, makes the body in order that the 
individual man or woman may use it to obtain the unique 
satisfactions which it affords. 

Even viewed from this angle, the instrumental theory is 
not free from difficulties; for this one at least remains, that 



76 THE SELF AND NATURE 

in order for a thing to be given as a tool, a user must already 
exist; but the self does not pre-exist to the acts of its body. 
The interests which are attached there cannot exist sepa- 
rately. There can be, for example, no satisfaction in move- 
ment unless there is movement, and no desire to move unless 
there is a, commencing motion ; and the self can have no idea 
of these experiences — and a fortiori no desire for them — 
before it has possessed them. So far, therefore, as the cor- 
poreal interests of the soul are concerned, it would seem to 
be misleading to think of the latter as a musician playing 
upon the body as an instrument; because, once more, the 
soul does not exist at all until the body is set into action. 
The player can exist without his instrument; but the soul 
does not exist without the body. 

In a larger sense, however, it is not true that the musician 
exists apart from his instrument. Take from him his violin 
or his piano and his musicianly self is gone. The playing of 
the instrument is himself. And this is true of every use of 
tools. When the workman puts away his tools, he leaves 
behind a part of himself; we do not see this so clearly in the 
case of the artisan as we do in the case of the artist, because 
more of the man's self is in the latter's work than in the 
former's. It is not true, moreover, that in all cases one 
instrument is as good as another, for neither the materials 
nor the tools of the artist can be exchanged. In so far, 
therefore, as each self is unique, its body, as the instrument 
of its activities, must also be unique. The use of this tool is 
the man — without it, he is not. Hence, only in the larger 
sense of medium of expression is the body a tool of the self. 



THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY JJ 

The difficulty in the way of accepting this last view, so 
close to unprejudiced habits of thinking among the people, 
arises from the artificial, "scientific " conception of the body. 
That the soul, a passionate thing, should be tied to a swarm 
of atoms imaginable only by the most attenuated thought 
must always remain a mystery; but when we come to 
recognize that the body is what we find it in our experience 
— a sensuous congeries, warm and hot, straining and relax- 
ing, moving and reposing, this strangeness disappears; it is 
then no longer wonderful that the self should be bound to 
that in which it is chiefly interested. For example, the 
movement sensations of the dancer are elements of her very 
body's motions; it would be absurd, therefore, to consider 
her limbs as mere external instruments of the dancing experi- 
ence, when they are not something other than it, but a part 
of it, the rest being the values in dancing, which certainly 
could not exist previous to the dancing. 

The instrumental theory, as ordinarily conceived, is thus 
inadequate to the facts of the lower soul-life, and could never 
have grown out of reflection upon them. For there the soul 
is so immersed in the body that it could not conceivably 
exist without the latter. So true is this, that spiritualistic 
philosophers from Plato downward have sought to minimize 
or reject this part of the soul, and have founded the instru- 
mental theory on the consideration of the higher soul-life of 
memory, imagination and thought. The roots of the theory 
in this region might profitably be traced from Plato through 
Plotinus to Bergson in our own time. In the view of all 
these thinkers the higher soul-life is essentially distinct from, 



78 THE SELF AND NATURE 

and independent of, the body, making use of the latter only 
as a tool for the purpose of acting on the sense world. With 
Plato, who was near enough to common modes of thinking 
to perceive the necessary connection of the lower soul-life 
with the body, the theory was a part of that dualism be- 
tween the lower nature and the higher which persists among 
all his intellectual children. It is in the higher region, there- 
fore, that the final test of the theory must be made. Let us, 
then, proceed to study it there, confining our attention for 
the moment, however, to those facts upon which the higher 
life is based. 

On the way to the higher soul-life stands the image. The 
image is obviously the basis or material of all imagina- 
tion, thought, purpose, and sentiment. The image has a 
double relation : on the one hand, to the sensation of which 
it is a derivative, and on the other, to the brain on which it 
is somehow dependent. If considered with reference to 
either one of these alone, it is incomprehensible. 

The image is obviously a duplicate of sensation. In the 
image the sense world is mirrored. But the replica is no 
exact copy. The differences between the two are common- 
places of observation ; what is important for us is the second- 
ary character of the image in relation to sensation, which 
is plain alike from the differences and the resemblances be- 
tween them. There is nothing in the image which is not in 
the sensation ; there are, of course, combinations of images to 
which nothing in the sense world corresponds; but there 
are no such elementary images. The image is posterior to the 
sensation ; unless a sensation has preceded, there is no image. 



THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 79 

Invention is no exception; for the elements of a plan are 
based on sensations antecedent both to the plan and to the 
thing constructed in accordance with it. The image is also 
dependent in a third respect, evident at once in the plan and 
in memory — it demands fulfillment in sensation. It is the 
intention of the image to lead into a sensation of like quality 
or to offer itself as a substitute, confessedly poor, of a sen- 
sation ; the latter being the case with memory, the former 
with volition. The memorial image has value only in the 
absence of sensation, the plan or expectation only until 
realization. 

But the whole sense world is not imaged. Only so much 
as is perceived, and even not all of that, is mirrored. Now 
in the process of mirroring the brain is somehow concerned. 
This is the strange thing. The dependence upon sensation is 
easily comprehensible — we can understand how the reflec- 
tion presupposes the object reflected. But the image does 
not mirror the brain. The facts are these: The brain medi- 
ates integral reactions of the organism to the sense world; 
these reactions with the values attendant upon them are 
thus brought into contact with the sense elements; such 
elements are said to be perceived. Nervous processes which 
have once mediated the perception of a sense element may, 
when stimulated to like activity in the absence of the sense 
element, be accompanied by an image of that element. 

Now the instrumentalist claims to have an explanation of 
these facts. To the question why the image, which is ad- 
mittedly heterogeneous with the brain, should be dependent 
upon the latter, he answers, Because it is the purpose of the 



80 THE SELF AND NATURE 

image, as we have just seen, to lead back to sensation, and 
to this end the body is useful. Volition is the clearest case of 
this. The plan, an imaginal structure, demands fulfillment 
in a sensuous reality, and in order to complete itself therein 
makes use of the motor mechanism of the brain. The brain 
is a motor mechanism, the purpose of which is to realize 
ideas in the sense world. 

From the fact that the brain is only an instrument for the 
realization of ideas, it is inferred that they must be capable 
of existence independent of it. The user is not dependent for 
his existence upon the tool. This, as we saw in the discussion 
of the lower soul-life, is the premiss of the instrumental 
theory. The case of Bergson is typical. The idea, he asserts, 
has a double mode, on the one hand speculative — "pure 
memory " — which exists independent of the brain; on the 
other hand practical, anticipating and leading into action, 
and dependent on the brain for just this realization. The 
practical character of the image is the key, Bergson asserts, 
to the relation between mind and brain. There are obviously 
two points to be considered here: the alleged independent 
existence of the image and the purely practical relation to 
the brain. Let us study the former first. 

A man who tries to find his way out of the woods is guided 
by memories of the spots passed on his way in. One place 
recognized suggests another in its vicinity, and by following 
these suggestions, that is, by ordering his conduct in accord- 
ance with these images, he succeeds in his effort. If the 
search for the way out is difficult and the situation anxious, 
his mind will be entirely filled by the images — no other 



THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 8 1 

memories will be present. Here is a typical example at once 
of the apparently instrumental character of the relation 
between image and body — for the image seems to guide the 
body much as a hand might guide a tool — and of the practi- 
cal character of the image itself. Let us study this example 
in terms of our problem. 

In the first place, the suggested images which guide our 
huntsman's steps seem to be brought into existence by the 
associative process, which at every point is controlled by the 
immediate practical purpose involving the body. No one 
would deny, I suppose, that their emergence into the mind 
depends on the purpose in hand. But how do we know, it 
may be said, that they did not pre-exist and are not simply 
selected for use at this particular vital juncture ? Well, first 
of all, there is no evidence of their previous existence. Some 
of the images, the simulacra of objects seen for the first 
time, will be new to the man's mind; they will appear on its 
surface with the freshness and uniqueness of a new ripple on 
water ; hence their power of existing apart from this mental 
context cannot be tested. On the other hand, some of the 
images will be old ones; they will be familiar; and by re- 
appearing will show themselves capable of a certain inde- 
pendence of special mental structure. Yet how could one 
prove that they continued to exist between the old and the 
new appearances ? Only by the actual discovery of them 
during this interval. But plainly the man himself could not 
discover them. And no one of his friends could. For, al- 
though another man might have images of the same objects, 
he could not have the same images. Images are peculiar, 



82 THE SELF AND NATURE 

personal, private. They have a common reference to 
identical objects; but they are not themselves common. 

Yet one might grant the individuality of imagery and still 
maintain its existence independent of its appearance in the 
mind. Every experience of an object may result in the 
creation of an image of it which exists independent of any 
mind, yet accessible to one mind only; each person thus 
possessing a storehouse of images into which he and he 
only can enter. The individual brain would be just a key, 
as it were, to unlock this chamber; but would not -in any 
way be capable of creating it — just as the senses do not 
create the sense world, yet give access to it. 

Yet a simple reflection suffices to show the ineptitude of 
this supposition. It is enough to examine the image itself to 
discover that it has no status independent of the mind. The 
image is part of an intention ; it possesses a function — refer- 
ence to an object; this intention is a mental act. It has no 
self-sufficing being, such as a sensation has. It serves, as we 
saw, either to lead into a sensation — volition — or to sub- 
stitute itself for one — knowledge. But both knowledge and 
action are functions of the self. 

But does the functional character of images and the 
consequent dependence on mind prove dependence on the 
body ? I think so. The instrumentalists admit this for 
the practical side of the higher soul-life. Since the use of 
images in action depends on the body, and since, as we have 
seen, they have no existence apart from this use, their de- 
pendence on the body is made out. The body in its relation 
to the environment sets every practical problem. We have 



THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 83 

already shown how the interests are bound up with the body. 
And the practically available imagery is determined through 
these interests. Take the illustration of the huntsman in the 
woods. His interest in feeding his body determined him to 
enter the woods; and the practical problem of getting out 
was determined by the presence of his body there. This 
presence determined his sense experience, through which, in 
terms of the problem of getting out, the images of the route 
back were suggested. Now each one of these images is 
either of a useful movement or of an object towards which 
it would be useful to move. Hence, their relation to the 
brain is clear: they are accompaniments of brain processes 
which either set up useful movements or tend to do so. The 
intent of every practical image is to place the body in a more 
favorable relation to the environment. In fine, the body 
does not exist for the sake of the image ; rather, conversely, 
the image exists for the sake of the body. 

Similar to the instrumental theory of the relation of the 
image and the brain is so-called interactionism, the passing 
examination of which, will, I think, throw light on our prob- 
lem. According to interactionism, the image depends upon 
the body for its existence, yet, once it is there, intercalates it- 
self between stimulation and reaction, guides the latter, and 
so has the value of a real causal element in the vital process. 
The teleological reactions of the organism, in particular, are 
causally dependent on the functional image. The interac- 
tionist no more thinks of the image as being independent of 
the body than we do. In this he differs radically from the 
Platonic instrumentalist. He simply claims for the image 



84 THE SELF AND NATURE 

the same sort of efficacy as is possessed by any organ, say 
by the stomach or eye, which are produced by the organism 
as a whole, and are incapable of existing separate from it, 
yet, as constituent parts, enter into its causal economy. 
The functional image is responsible, it is claimed, for two 
characteristics of conscious behaviour: the association of 
old reactions to new stimuli either contiguous or similar to 
the old (learning), and the combination of old reactions into 
new ones (invention), always in the direction of dominion 
over the environment to the end of self-preservation. No 
mere machine could exhibit behaviour of this kind, it is 
claimed. 

The examination of experience seems to confirm this view 
of the situation. In all voluntary action the idea of the end 
precedes and seems to determine the activities of the body. 
The idea of the point to be reached, for example, precedes 
the steps of the huntsman at each part of his journey, and 
his steps are taken in accordance with it. 

Yet, interactionism cannot be established on the basis of 
these arguments. The impossibility of explaining the be- 
haviour of the conscious organism on mechanical principles 
does not prove that consciousness intervenes as a cause. It 
proves only that the living and conscious body possesses 
the capacity for acting in a fashion other than mechanical. 
The limits of this capacity cannot be established a priori. 
The sufficiency of the mechanical principles for the descrip- 
tion of nature is a hypothesis which is highly probable in the 
inorganic world, but so far not established in other fields. 
And the apparent intervention of the image between stimu- 



THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 85 

lation and reaction is not proved. Indeed, if we take into 
account not merely the gross acts of the body, but all the 
preparatory phenomena, the idea appears to be rather a 
formulation of the action which the body is already begin- 
ning to undertake, and of the end to which it is even now 
tending, than a precedent and separate fact. 

That ideas are not transitively causal in their relation to 
the body, as the interactionist maintains, can, I think, be 
made plausible by the following argument. It will probably 
be granted that if we can prove this for ideas in their pur- 
posive function, we can do so for all ideas. Every purpose is 
a formulated desire, one that has become aware of the object 
which would satisfy it. This awareness of its object dis- 
tinguishes desire from simple impulse or instinct, but does 
not itself constitute desire; for the mere knowledge of an 
object does not make it desirable. Hence, more accurately, 
purpose is impulse upon which has been engrafted, in its 
service, an idea. Let us now study each of these elements 
of purpose and ask ourselves whether or not their relations 
to the body are transitively causal. This is certainly not 
true of the idea taken abstractly in its cognitive function. 
The idea represents the goal to be attained and possesses 
proleptically the experience which will give satisfaction; 
but, of itself, it cannot create that object or bring to pass 
that experience. And a mere knowledge of an object cer- 
tainly cannot move and direct a brain and muscular appara- 
tus to any action. The knowing idea, if taken in abstraction, 
is representative of its object, not dynamic to the brain, of 
which it is completely ignorant. But now, if we consider the 



86 THE SELF AND NATURE 

other factor in purpose, impulse, we find that in itself it, 
too, is not dynamically related either to the thing desired 
or to the body. For, instead of standing over against the 
body and then impelling or dragging it to action, desire pre- 
supposes a definite state of the body in order to exist. The 
impulse for food, for example, is the expression of hunger — 
but what is hunger except a certain state of the body ? Would 
hunger be possible without a body ? Any one who answers in 
the affirmative shows that he is still an adherent of the theory 
that the body is a heap of atoms inaccessible to direct experi- 
ence. But as soon as it is recognized that our experience of 
the body is the body, it becomes as absurd to think of hunger 
without a digestive organ as of motion without a thing 
which moves. The interaction theory sins in the same way 
as the instrumental theory — in thinking that desire can 
exist without the organs of which it is an expression. Hunger 
cannot react with the body, for it possesses no substantial 
reality apart from the body. It arises as a phase of certain 
bodily conditions, varies with them, and necessarily ceases 
with them. It is an expression or aspect of them, not a cause 
of them. 

Let it not be supposed that we here fall into contradiction 
with ourselves; that, in order to refute the supposition that 
the soul could exist apart from the body, we urged the func- 
tional character of ideas ; whereas now, in order to refute the 
interaction theory, we assert that ideas do nothing — are 
functionless. We are not denying the functional character 
of ideas ; we are rather assigning to them their proper func- 
tion. The idea is functional only when penetrated by a 



THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 87 

desire; it represents those objects which would satisfy 
desire; but desire is itself a function of the body. The idea, 
therefore, expresses the body's action just as desire does, 
and so does not stand over against the body interacting 
with it. Yet the idea is not functionless simply because it 
does not enter into causal relations with the body; for 
by representing the objects which would satisfy desire, it 
affords premonitory delights, and, in the truest sense, en- 
lightens behaviour. And it is also not ineffective; for the 
desiring, planning body is the integral fact which stands in 
causal relations with the other facts in the world. The idea 
is, indeed, effective, but only through its organ of expression, 
the body. 

A person who rejects interactionism is usually found to 
uphold the theory called parallelism. But parallelism is, 
I think, equally unsatisfactory. According to this latter 
theory, a purposive idea is a mere passive accompaniment of 
the body's action, totally ineffective. But every one knows 
at first hand that this is not true. Its plausibility rests 
wholly on the materialistic reconstruction of experience, the 
artificiality and baselessness of which we have already re- 
ferred to. Of course, once you conceive of the body as a 
system of atoms, it becomes impossible to understand how 
the mind can control it. On the other hand, just as soon as 
you recognize that the body is what it is found to be, all the 
objections to the control of the body through ideas fall 
away, and the testimony of experience forces acceptance. 

It might, however, still be urged that even from the stand- 
point of our own theory of the physical world, ideas and 



88 THE SELF AND NATURE 

their bodily expression are too dissimilar to allow of the 
kind of unity which we suppose to exist between them. For 
could there be anything empirically more heterogeneous 
than an idea and the cell-bodies, neurones and dendrites of 
the brain ? But two things must be borne in mind in this 
connection: first, that even these are sensations, are just 
the visual phenomena which we discover them to be, and 
second, that they are not the immediate means of expression 
for the idea, but rather facts in the mind of the observer, 
connected indeed with the action of the ideas in question, 
but only indirectly through the body of the observer and the 
intervening physical world. The direct medium for the ex- 
pression of ideas is the body which adjoins the experience 
of which they are a part; the rest are indirect expressions. 
And, of course, we are far from maintaining that a purpo- 
sive idea and its medium of expression are identical — there 
is no identity anywhere between a function and its medium ; 
we claim only that they are here, as elsewhere, on the one 
plane of experiential reality. 

Our disproof of the ordinary instrumental theory and 
proof of what we may call the expression theory will remain 
incomplete until we consider the most exalted of the soul's 
activities, the purely cognitive. Even Aristotle conceived of 
reason as something almost supernatural. And today, as we 
have recalled, Bergson believes that "pure memory" exists 
independent of the body. The basis for independence is the 
asserted non-practicality of these functions. The body 
exists for the sake of adjustment to and dominion over the 
environment; hence, to use Bergson 's case, a mental func- 



THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 89 

tion like reverie, during which the individual surveys his 
past, not with the purpose of learning a lesson for the future, 
but just to get a vision once more of deeds once lived, can 
have no need of the body; such an act, being purely theo- 
retical or aesthetic, involves, it is said, no adjustment and 
results in no practical mastery. Even as the past itself is 
removed from our action, so a vision of the past, when 
entered upon simply for its lingering charm and interest, has 
no practical reference. Along with the denial of the depend- 
ence of such mental acts on the body, Bergson asserts their 
existence independent of consciousness. A man's whole past, 
he believes, exists in images ; but only a small number come 
at any moment into the light of consciousness; and those 
that do appear there are for the most part invoked because 
of their utility; they use the brain as an instrument — they 
cannot act without it; the rest have no brain correlatives 
— they are inactive. 

We have already said something against the existence of 
images independent of consciousness; yet that might be 
considered insufficient, since no reference to explicitly non- 
practical images was made. But the same arguments apply 
generally. The image always appears in the mind impreg- 
nated with an act ; it is always the vehicle of a meaning and 
the embodiment of a feeling. Apart from its representative 
function and emotional significance, it has no standing in 
reality. As we have shown, an image does not stand on its 
own feet as a sense element does ; it is always retrospective 
of or transitive to something else. Even in free imagination 
the image is there to picture a fictitious sensuous reality. And 



90 THE SELF AND NATURE 

in memory the image represents the past; it voices a histori- 
cal truth; it does not offer itself. A cognitive activity is no 
less functional, no less active, than a practical one. Hence, the 
supposition that an act can exist apart from consciousness 
is meaningless; for consciousness is nothing except acts and 
the sense elements with which they are in contact. And to 
suppose that some acts, the memories, can be split off from 
the rest is like supposing that one could cut off a limb and 
keep it alive. Bergson makes the mistake of conceiving 
memory as a passive review of objects, when, as a matter of 
fact, it is a living development of one activity out of another. 
There is nothing more intimate than memory, nothing that 
penetrates so far into the soil of feeling and striving. Every 
vision of the past, no matter how seemingly static and purely 
pictorial, is born of some mood or desire. 

The same organic relation to the self which we have 
claimed for memory is true also for thought, even in its most 
speculative and apparently non-practical reaches. That 
there is apprehended by thought a reality independent of 
any one's thinking, and by memory a reality independent of 
any one's remembering, can be maintained with some plau- 
sibility, but that the thinking and remembering of the 
individual man is not his, not an inseparable part of the self, 
cannot be supported by any arguments. Thinking is an 
activity; it fulfills a striving and is itself a meaning even 
when divorced from practical motives fixed by the body's 
relation to the environment. There is no thinking without 
the purpose, the will to think. But the activities are identi- 
cal with their being lived, with the consciousness of them; 



THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 9 1 

there is, as we have argued at length, no difference between 
an act and the consciousness of an act. And to suppose that 
activities could be split off from the rest of what at any 
moment we know as the self is, we repeat, to ignore the 
living integrity of the self and the interwovenness of its acts 
— their relativity to their cues and occasions. We, of 
course, do not claim any occult unity for the self — merely 
that which is possessed by any highly organized animal 
body. 

We do not deny the non-practical character of much 
memory and thought. The mind, like the body, in large 
part — certainly in by far the largest part — is developed 
with reference to the external world in order to dominate it; 
yet there are internal relations of part to part within the 
organism, and even developments of single parts which only 
remotely have this reference. The mind, like the organism, 
is a little world by itself, and so, to a certain extent, ruled by 
its own laws and possessed of an independent career. Yet 
we claim that, except in the pathological conditions of dis- 
sociation, perhaps, the various acts of the self are so inter- 
dependent that they cannot exist separate from their world. 

It might seem, however, that even if we have proved the 
impossibility of the existence of the higher acts beyond con- 
sciousness, we have not proved their dependence on the body 
while in consciousness. Yet the dependence of the higher 
soul-life on the body follows from what we have already 
established. We have shown that the lower soul-life is 
dependent upon the body because it expresses the body, and 
the practical life of ideas because they serve the body. 



92 THE SELF AND NATURE 

Now no one would deny the close relation between the 
higher soul-life and the lower. Both are parts of the one 
mind. Hence, whatever affects the lower part of the soul in 
its connection with the body affects the higher, and nothing 
can happen in the higher without affecting the lower and so 
coming into relation with the body. 

Yet a doubt may still remain ; for might not this relation 
be expressed by some sort of interaction theory ? Might not 
the lower soul-life in its attachment to the body be con- 
nected causally with the higher, although the latter had no 
physical expression ? Thus the soul would have an exten- 
sion, an upper story, as it were, raised above the physical 
world, yet connected with it through the lower foundation 
upon which it rests. Influences would pass from one to the 
other. The intellect would use the motor organism for the 
expression and record of itself; and disturbances arising 
from the lower soul would propagate themselves higher. 
Yet the intellect itself would be free of the body. 

The interpenetration of the parts of the soul forbids, how- 
ever, such an interpretation. The speculative and the prac- 
tical are only two directions of a single function, and the 
bodily contacts which make the latter possible are not 
broken, but only less active in the case of the former. 
Every idea, as we have shown, is the reflex of a sense experi- 
ence, essentially corporeal in its origin, the expression of 
some bodily movement and adjustment. In its original 
phase, the idea exists to guide the organism back to such an 
experience — the memory of some scene of vivid enjoyment 
leads us back to enjoy it once more. Apart from the longing 



THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 93 

and motor tendency to return, the idea would not arise. The 
idea is not self-sufficient; it demands fulfillment in a sense 
experience of the same type, and expresses just this incom- 
pleteness. But oftentimes the reinstatement of experience 
is impossible. Does the idea then cease to exist ? Not neces- 
sarily. A failure to adjust the organism to the environment 
in any given direction need not spoil the function concerned ; 
it may simply be the means of turning the energy inwards. 
The tendency to return to the scene of our illustration will 
continue to exist and become active when the proper cues 
are provided, even when no successful issue in behaviour 
occurs; and with the arousal of the motor tendency the 
desire and the idea which are its expression will recur : only 
they will now exist in a new form ; they will have become a 
mere memory of the scene — a pure memory — practically 
ineffective. And to this fruitless image will be attached 
the values which would have accrued to the reinstatement 
of the experience which it means — the sunny joys of 
activity will be transformed into the moonlit delights of 
contemplation. And so the speculative grows out of the 
practical: we build in the imagination that desired thing 
which we have failed to keep or create. Yet, in emerging 
from the practical, the speculative cannot free itself from the 
bodily attachment which is clearly necessary to the life of 
the former. The original total thing is the plan with the 
motor aspect ; now the plan cannot be transformed into the 
speculative idea, since the whole thing is a unit, without a 
transformation of the bodily aspect of the whole; least of all 
can the plan free itself from the body. The continued de- 



94 THE SELF AND NATURE 

pendence of ideas on the body is evident once we reflect that 
ideas become speculative because of events and circum- 
stances in which the body plays the deciding role. Every 
idea has originally a practical intent; the purely speculative 
idea is an aborted plan ; but all practical failure is due to the 
body in its relation to the physical world. 

Not only are the higher activities a development of the 
lower and practical and so bound to maintain the connec- 
tion with the body possessed by the latter; they are always 
implicated in the latter. The higher soul-life is no separable 
phase or upper story of the mind, but a later growth which, 
even when soaring highest, keeps its roots in the lower. 
Consider beauty and affection. A purely non-corporeal 
affection is an abstraction, not a concrete reality; torn from 
its sensuous root, it withers and dies; this is true, not only of 
passionate love, but of quiet friendship, which also requires 
bodily presence and the interchange of word and act. The 
aesthetic interests, despite all their spirituality, depend 
flagrantly upon the interfusion of subtle organic values; it 
is the balance between spirit and sense which gives them 
their pre-eminence, the clear and equal participation of 
body with feeling and thought. Finally, there is no purely 
speculative activity. Every philosophy expresses the emo- 
tional and striving life of the philosopher; even when 
standing in apparent contradiction with his ostensible acts, 
it is in secret agreement with some part of his nature which 
virtue or fear or circumstance has kept him from living 
out — the radical thought of the conventional man has 
another ground than pure reason. And if we take practical 



THE RELATION BETWEEN MIND AND BODY 95 

in the truer and larger sense of including all that has refer- 
ence to effectiveness beyond the individual mind, then all 
soul-life is practical. There is no idea or emotion, however 
attenuated, which does not crave expression, communication, 
a career in the wider world of the fellow mind. But expres- 
sion and communication involve the body. And thought 
and feeling do not first exist and then use the body as an 
instrument for expression ; for an activity and its expression 
are one fact. Thought does not begin to be without some 
incipient expression. And it is not the fancies and thoughts 
of the man of genius alone that crave expression ; there is no 
vision of the past held by any common man, and no one of 
his dreams, that does not yearn for relation, and, in devious 
ways, affect his conduct. 

Thus the dependence of the mind on the body has been 
shown to be complete. 1 The body is the soul's expression, its 
indispensable tool, without which it is not. 

1 Further problems connected with this dependence are studied in Chap- 
ter x. 



CHAPTER V 

TIME 

EVERY phase of reality which we have investigated so 
far, the self, the body, the external world, is pervaded 
by change. 

Being so fundamental a property of existence, change is 
naturally thought to be simple and unanalyzable. Yet an 
attentive examination reveals three indispensable aspects. 
Change involves, first, the coming in, rise or emergence into 
existence of something new, something which was not before. 
Every alteration or development is an illustration: a body 
moves into a new point; an organism passes into a stage 
which was hitherto not its own. Although perfectly clear as 
a mark of direct experience, this is often only grudgingly 
recognized. People try to minimize it by seeking to break 
the new into smaller and ever smaller increments, even into 
an infinite multitude of them, yet the fact of increment 
remains — creative steps are made. 

Plainly the new which comes to be does not rise into a 
void, but into a space already there, into a world already 
old. Here is the second moment of change — the persistence 
of a core of reality upon which the new is grafted. This 
abiding aspect of the changing thing is usually called " the 
thing which " changes. In the self we have the most direct 
knowledge of the combination of new and old, of identity 
and diversity, essential to change; for there, as we have seen, 

96 



TIME 97 

new sensations and new images, new interests and new 
emotions, are developed out of, and woven into, purposes 
and attitudes that endure. 

Third and last, change involves disappearance from exist- 
ence, disintegration, loss. If we did not know this independ- 
ently, we could deduce it from the moments of change 
already cited. For the new, by breaking in upon the old 
situation and giving to it a new element, necessarily destroys 
it. When c enters, the old whole a+b passes away; for it 
has become a-\-b-\-c, and its several elements have changed 
in adjusting themselves to the intruder. But the devastat- 
ing effect of change is not confined to the destruction of old 
totalities ; for the very elements of the old may pass away. 
The light which I see may " go out "; the thought which I 
now entertain may leave my mind; the man may die. This 
aspect of loss in change is as absolute and indefeasible as any 
other. You may seek to minimize it by reducing it to small 
steps, just as you did with growth, but you cannot eliminate 
it; however small or gradual, even if infinitesimal, it never- 
theless remains. Yet loss, like novelty, never covers the 
entire field; loss is always a loss from something; passing 
is always from a permanent. And just as creation involves 
destruction, so destruction involves creation; for every 
whole, in losing an element, thereby becomes a new one. 

The three moments of process are present together in 
every individual of the world; yet in varying degrees. In 
some individuals, creation is especially intense; in others, 
rest; in still others, loss. By reason of this, the elements of 
reality acquire an order, the so-called time-form. In the 



98 THE SELF AND NATURE 

song — to use the familiar example — there is always a note 
which is just coming to be, another which lingers, a third 
which is dying away. The direction of this order is towards 
the individuals where there is most creation of the new and 
away from those which are passing. The new comes before 
the old, the old before the dying; the novel enters, becomes 
familiar, and then is lost. 

The fact of coming and going differentiates the time-form 
from every other structure, making it unique and irredu- 
cible. In a static series, like that of the letters on this page, 
there is also variety and unity, but there is not novelty and 
losing. There, each element has a distinct and unique place, 
but all places are filled, and there is no passing of one and rise 
of another; here, elements enter into places left vacant by 
others, the newcomers crowding out the old. In the eternal 
and static, all things can conceivably be known together; 
in time, acquaintance must proceed from one to another — 
a thing must enter a stranger before it can depart a familiar 
friend. 

The co-presence in one whole of elements, permanent, 
rising and perishing, may seem to raise a problem. For if 
they are all co-present, they must co-exist; hence, at any 
least moment, it may be said, they must either be all static 
and changeless, the ultimate constituents of the rising and 
perishing elements being on a level with the rest; or else, in 
the whole which they form, existence and co-existence, two 
contradictories, must be peacefully united, the transient 
elements keeping their unique character. Yet neither of 
these alternatives is possible; for, on the one hand, change 



TIME 99 

cannot be made out of a succession of static states, and, on 
the other, two contradictories cannot be united in any given 
thing. We have a direct intuition at once of change and of 
the certainty of the principle of contradiction. 

This difficulty arises from a poverty of categories. We 
must distinguish rising and perishing from non-existence; 
we must recognize that existence has three temporal forms : 
the permanent, the growing, the perishing. Even the dying 
is not the dead, the absolutely non-existent. Existence and 
non-existence can no more cohere than any two other con- 
tradictories can; yet in the same thing, in the same least 
moment of reality, creation and decay are present together 
with the permanent, just as color and extension and hardness 
co-exist in the same physical object. Becoming and passing 
must be recognized as ultimate categories, sub-forms of the 
existent, on an equal footing there with the permanent. 

Still, it is sometimes thought that you can reduce tran- 
sition — coming to be or passing away — to existence and 
non-existence as simpler and more ultimate categories. 
That which is coming to be, it is said, is that which both is 
and is not yet; that which is passing away both is and is no 
longer. Thus, when a child becomes a man, it might seem 
that as a child, he is, and as a man, he is not; and yet, in 
becoming a man, he must be both what he is and is not. 
But clearly a thing either is or is not. The difficulty comes 
from a failure in analysis. No distinction is made between 
an ideal thing which does not exist, yet may come to exist or 
have existed, and the real moments of process which alone 
exist. In the case of our illustration, only the tiny present 



IOO THE SELF AND NATURE 

moment of growth, a flare or flash of becoming, exists; 
whether it is called a child or a man is somewhat arbitrary, 
depending on whether there are more of the childlike or the 
manly qualities in it; for if the child is becoming a man, 
he must have both; but the man which he will become, 
and equally the child which he has left behind, are only 
expected or remembered things, purely ideal, which, as gone 
or as not yet realized, simply do not exist at all. 

The recognition that the new always grows out of some- 
thing relatively permanent obviates another difficulty 
which has confronted men in their efforts to understand 
change. Time has often been pictured as a flaring up of 
existence followed by an extinction, which is then replaced 
by a new existence, and so on. The whole world had to 
be annihilated, it was thought, before anything new could 
arise. Then, of course, the problem became acute as to how 
out of nothing something could grow. But the entire con- 
ception is false. There is always something which exists, as 
we have seen, out of which the new is born; becoming 
springs from being, not being from non-being. How the new 
springs out of the old we do not here inquire — that belongs 
to the topic of causation — we simply call attention to the 
fact that it grows from the old. Change should not be repre- 
sented by a series of totally different elements like a, b, c, d, 
. . ., but rather as a, ab, be, where the a's and the b's are 
identical and not merely similar. 

Thus far we have made no reference to the so-called parts 
of time — past, present and future, and for the reason that, 
at its lowest development, the temporal experience does not 



TIME IOI 

contain them explicitly. Yet the beginnings of them exist 
there. The dying elements contain an incipient pastness, 
the enduring ones are the core of the present, while the new, 
the rising ones, are oriented in the direction of the future. 
Novelty is the mark of the future, familiarity of the present, 
loss of the past, all of which are contained implicitly in the 
immediate experience of change. For the full develop- 
ment of these distinctions, however, reflection is required. 
Through memory and expectation, the given present experi- 
ence must be conceived to be related to two realms which, 
while not belonging to it, may nevertheless be represented, 
or vicariously contained, in it. An element as it goes leaves 
the memory of itself. In so far as this abides in the direct 
experience and endures, it is, of course, a part of the present; 
yet it looks to the element which leaves it, represents it, and 
places it in the ideal region which we call the past. Again, 
when an element recurs, the memory of it, meeting it on its 
return, being fulfilled in it constantly, becomes an expecta- 
tion of it. As a part of direct experience, as given, the expec- 
tation is present, but what it means, that to which it looks 
to fulfill it, is not given, and hence is conceived to belong to 
another realm — the future. Thus the development of the 
concept of time involves the possibility of representation, 
of memory and expectation. 

If our account is correct, it is clear that any attempt to 
find in the given experience of change all properties of the 
complete temporal concept is futile. The distinctions of past 
and future are not contained explicitly in the elements 
which belong to the specious present. In the change- 



102 THE SELF AND NATURE 

experience, as, for example, in the melody or line of verse 
when read, there are, to be sure, earlier and later, coming 
and going; one element does not occupy the same place as 
another in the temporal sequence and one is more forward 
or more backward in the temporal direction ; but there is no 
"gone," no "lost." When I hear a line of verse, taking it 
in at once, the first words are not "over and done with" at 
the moment when the later ones arise; they are simply be- 
hind and fading, but not faded, passing, but not past. We 
experience pastness completely only when we reflectively 
experience loss. Awareness of differences within the specious 
present, or even of a change of these, does not suffice for the 
experience. Elements must be represented as absent from 
the specious present, as excluded from all that we imme- 
diately experience. The exclusiveness of past and present 
is, therefore, not at all comparable to that of one point on a 
line with reference to another. For there, although one 
point is different from another, both belong to the same 
universe of discourse; while in time the two elements 
exclude each other from the same realm. 

We must now extend our concept of time beyond the 
directly knowable and existent world to include the past 
and future as parts. What are the past and the future ? In 
the first place, it is evident that they are non-existent. 
I have argued this at length in another publication, 1 to 
which I would refer the reader who desires a more com- 
plete study of the matter. We know that past and future do 

1 " The Metaphysics of Historical Knowledge," University of California 
Publications in Philosophy. 



TIME IO3 

not exist, because we observe directly disintegration on the 
one hand and origination on the other hand. Yet, although 
past and future do not exist, they are not unrepresented in 
reality; for we possess the truth about them. Every event 
as it flares up into existence is the fulfillment of a truth which 
anticipated it; every element as it passes from existence 
leaves behind a trail which is the historical truth that it 
was. Now these truths are the other parts of time — past 
and future. Whoever conceives of the specious present as 
having developed out of something and as tending toward 
something, recognizes these ideal worlds ; short of recognition 
of them, one is left with the given moment as the all. 

Now the being of these ideal worlds puts a problem to the 
metaphysician, the consideration of which we shall defer to 
a later chapter; here it must suffice to make plain the 
recognition of them by everybody who possesses a developed 
conception of time. Although everybody knows that the 
present indivisible moment alone exists, everybody never- 
theless thinks of time as some sort of series, and of processes 
as occurring in stages, one following another. Everybody 
thinks of the present as the last term of a long, perhaps in- 
finite, sequence of events, and as the first term of an equally 
long, and again perhaps infinite, procession to come. 

In arguing for the validity of a conception of time which 
carries beyond the present, we do not, of course, defend an 
absolute time independent of the process of the world. Time 
is entirely relative to process; there could be no time if 
there were no change. Time is the ideal record and proph- 
ecy of happenings, of the order of their rising and perish- 



104 THE SELF AND NATURE 

ing. It is the trail left by the world in its movement and the 
path which it is destined to follow. But plainly, without the 
movement, there could be no path. 

The conception of time as a series has been criticized by 
Bergson; but he really does no more than call attention to 
the fact that the present or given flare of reality is no 
developed series. It is only when the immediate is con- 
ceived in relation to something out of which it has grown, 
but which it is no longer, and as developing into something 
which it has not attained, that the series comes into view. 
Then clearly one thing is seen to follow upon another. The 
immediate is, indeed, an indivisible existence with just the 
most rudimentary order in the elements which it holds in 
solution; but time, the ideal record of the immediate, is not 
indivisible. Every history or biography contains stages. 
Consider the movement of a body in space, the growth of an 
organism, the development of a nation. The stages are con- 
tinuous, but nevertheless distinct; one follows upon another, 
yet one is not another. And the distinction between them is 
not arbitrary; for it corresponds to a distinction between 
one truth and another. For example, to distinguish between 
one position of a body in motion and another is to distin- 
guish between one truth — the truth that it was at a, and 
another truth — the truth that it was at b, and these truths 
have an unequivocal order. The stages in a process are, 
to be sure, stages in its history; but did any one ever 
suppose that they were stages in anything else ? Surely 
no one ever thought they were contained in the specious 
present. 



TIME IO5 

One might, however, reply to this that the arbitrariness of 
the stages in the temporal series consists in the arbitrariness 
of the truths of which the series consists. Take motion as 
the simplest case of change. When a body passes from a to 
c, going through b, you cannot assert, it might be claimed, 
that it was first at a, then at b, and now is at c, thus distin- 
guishing the three truths; for since a and b, and b and c, are 
contiguous, they cannot be distinguished at all. Yet surely 
you can distinguish between the non-contiguous points a 
and c, and hence between the corresponding truths of 
motion ; and, believing as we do, in the individuality even of 
contiguous points, there must be a valid distinction between 
being at a and being at b. This answer involves, of course, 
a defence of individuality, which we shall undertake in our 
chapter on relations. But grant for the present the reality of 
individuals, and the distinction between the one truth and 
the other follows. That a thing can move, can get from one 
point to another, is an irreducible fact of observation ; it is 
just the fact of transition, which has to be admitted on any 
view. 

There are still two facts outstanding which might seem to 
tell against the conception of time as a series : one is the per- 
sistence of elements after they have risen into existence 
along with the new ones which are just coming in — what 
Bergson calls the penetration mutuelle des elements; the other 
is the reappearance, in a new context, of elements which 
existed before in a previous one, emphasized by us in our 
discussion of personal identity. These facts are, indeed, 
fatal to any conception of time as a series like that of the 



106 THE SELF AND NATURE 

points on a line, in which any element, if it occupies a given 
position in the series, is necessarily excluded from any other. 
The recurrence of elements implies that an element which 
was at a moment of time in the past may now be present, and 
even future also; and the persistence of elements requires 
that neighboring moments have common parts. 

Yet because time is not a punctual series, it does not follow 
that it is no series at all. There are other types of series. 
There is another example of a series which well illustrates 
many features of the temporal series. Consider a series of 
overlapping areas of various sizes. Here elements of space 
exist identical in various areas. Yet the latter may be 
arranged in a continuous series. Each position, that is, each 
whole area, is unique; but the parts of the areas are not all 
so; some will run through the entire series. The positions 
in the series are distinguished by possessing, or not possess- 
ing, elements which do not, or do, belong to the others. The 
properties of time are parallel. The " moments," the whole 
stages or cross sections of the world process, are unique ; but 
their elements are not unique, for they are repeated in various 
wholes, exist at various " times." The wholes are always dif- 
ferent, but not so the elements. Take the mind as an illus- 
tration. It begins its career as a definite whole of elements. 
Growth consists in a continual modification of this whole 
through the loss of some elements and the gain of others. 
Personal identity, as we know, may be more or less; yet 
throughout the process there is a thread of sameness by 
reason of which a man is the same man. Hence, although 
the entire momentary state of an individual is always 



TIME IO7 

unique, being always a change from that of a moment ago, 
there are elements of this whole which are common to 
many moments, and even some which recur after long inter- 
vals. The process of experience is a continual assimilation 
of new material to the old, and an effort to preserve the old, 
despite constant decay. 

The conception of time as a punctual series is closely con- 
nected with the theory of the uniqueness of mental states, a 
theory which we have found grounds to reject because of its 
evident contradiction with the facts of personal identity. 
For if mental states were unique, there would be no survival 
beyond the single instant, or recurrence after an interval; 
each element would be an instantaneous existence, rising 
only to perish forthwith. 

The final objection may be made that an element cannot 
exist at different moments; for, in order to do so, it would 
have to maintain its identity despite its entrance into the 
new relationships involved in its presence in a new context. 
A thing cannot be identical in different relationships, it may 
be claimed. This objection rests on a theory of relations 
which we shall find grounds to reject in our chapter devoted 
to the subject. Let it suffice here to call attention to the 
truth already insisted on, that partial identity is a fact of 
direct experience. I find myself to be partly the same, as 
man and as child, before and after entering upon new duties, 
new relationships. No logic, we repeat, can invalidate the 
truth of such experiences. 

Time, then, is a series. Every series is a class of elements 
between which there exists an asymmetrical, transitive 



108 THE SELF AND NATURE 

relation. What are the elements of the temporal series and 
what is the relation by virtue of which they constitute a 
series ? The elements are ordinarily conceived to be events, 
happenings. But, as we have seen, only those events exist 
which belong to the specious present; yet all other events, 
such as Brutus 's deed in killing Caesar, are members of time 
although they no longer exist. All except an infinitesimaUy 
small segment of time consists, therefore, not of real events, 
but of the truth about events. Brutus and Caesar are no 
more; but the truth that Brutus killed Caesar abides; now 
this truth is the object of history and the genuine element of 
the temporal series. The past state out of which a thing has 
grown and the future state into which it will develop are not 
elements of the temporal order; for they have no reality; 
but the truth that such a thing was and the truth that such 
another thing will be are elements. 

Sometimes, however, the elements of the temporal series 
are conceived to be not events, but " moments." Events are 
at moments, it is claimed; they acquire their temporal char- 
acter through this relation ; they do not possess it in them- 
selves. But this is to put the cart before the horse; for, as 
we have seen, there is no time apart from events. Temporal- 
ity is nothing else than the characteristic property of proc- 
ess and the truths which are generated through process. A 
moment has no existence apart from the events which are, as 
we say, "at" that moment; it is, as we shall show directly, 
nothing but a level of events — a class of correlated hap- 
penings or truths about happenings. A moment has no more 
meaning apart from the events which are at it than the class 



TIME IO9 

man has meaning apart from the real or possible men which 
do, or may, belong to it. We think of an event as at a mo- 
ment rather than as constituting a moment, because it has to 
be taken along with other events with which it is correlated 
in the temporal series. The elements of time are rightly 
designated events rather than things, meaning by event 
either an existing occurrence or the truth about one, because 
event implies process, which is the genuine element of 
reality and that by virtue of which reality is temporal; 
whereas thing denotes simply one aspect of process — that 
of stability — which, although involved in all process, does 
not suffice to constitute it. 

Such are the elements of the temporal series. What now is 
the relation between them through which they constitute a 
series ? The difficulties involved in the answer to this ques- 
tion have, I think, usually been unrecognized. They arise 
from the fact that time consists of two parts — a real seg- 
ment, the specious present, and an ideal segment, the past 
and future. Within the specious present, the order of events 
is indubitable, because given in direct experience. I find 
there a relation between occurrences unique in quality, a 
flashing into existence of events one after another, yet in 
contact with one another. A simple sequence of a few tones 
is an illustration. The properties of transitivity and asym- 
metry which characterize the relation are given with it. I 
observe that ab is not the same as ba, although I hold both 
within the unity of the present moment; and that wherever 
a, b, c occur together in the present moment, a relation of 
sequence between a and b, and between b and c, entails a 



IIO THE SELF AND NATURE 

similar relation between a and c. But only a small part of 
the temporal series is given in the existing moment. Where, 
for example, abc is given, cd is not given. How shall we con- 
nect ab with d ? Here of course memory supplants direct 
experience. I may remember that c was before d. In this 
way it is easy to perceive how the series of events is set up. 
If abc are in contact sequence within the present experience, 
and cd were in contact, and de, and ef, . . . then I can form 
the sequence of the corresponding truths, a' b' c' d f e'f. . . . 
When events cannot be observed and remembered to be in 
sequential contact, their order is established by analogy and 
induction in the fashion familiar to students of nature and of 
history. But now, although it is easy to understand how the 
time-series is actually set up in the minds of men, the prob- 
lem remains, what asymmetrical transitive relation holds 
between its members ? There was a real relation of sequen- 
tial contact between the elements in each pulse of existence, 
between a and b, b and c, c and d, d and e, e and/; but 
there never was such a relation between a and c, c and e, d 
and/. For when a existed, c was not yet, and when c was, e 
had not yet come to be. For example, there is not, nor ever 
was, a real relation between Brutus's deed and Charlotte 
Corday's; there cannot be one now, for neither deed exists; 
and there never was one, for the two were never together in 
existence. When, therefore, we put them both in the series 
and conceive of one as being before another in that series, 
what exactly do we mean ? We do, of course, put events 
into an order in the way that I have described and call that 
the temporal order; but we do not thereby establish any 



TIME 1 1 1 

objective relations between them. If the whole of time 
formed one existing moment, this problem would not arise; 
for then the real relation of contact sequence would hold 
between any two members; but this, we know, is contrary 
to fact. What objective relation, we ask once more, holds 
between non-contiguous members of the time-series ? Is 
there any, or is the series an artificial one, created by 
the mind ? 

It may perhaps be suggested that the relation which we 
seek is causation. The fact that the Crucifixion preceded 
St. Augustine's change of heart may, for example, be equiv- 
alent to the causal relation between the two events. Yet, 
it is impossible to maintain that remote events are cause 
and effect of one another. Causation is a real process; only 
that which exists can bring something else into existence; 
the real grows from the real, not from the non-existent. 
Only so much of a past moment as survives into the present 
is effective in producing the new events which grow out of 
each present. Hence the problem of the relation of remote 
whole moments to each other remains. They produce each 
its succeeding moment, but non-contiguous whole moments 
cannot be causally related. 

Yet that events have characters which, when imaged in 
the truths which replace them, afford a basis for a series is 
known to every student of history and nature. Organized 
bodies form an order in accordance with the principle of 
increasing complexity; personal and historical events are a 
teleological sequence, one situation being the fulfillment of 
the purposes of another and becoming in turn the basis for 



112 THE SELF AND NATURE 

new developments. Even if we did not know the order of 
the events of a man's life, as set up in the way denned above 
through the succession of adjoining moments, we could 
establish it through their teleological significance. The 
biographer who seeks to understand a life strives to discover 
just such an order. And in so far as the student of economic 
or cultural development undertakes to find laws for this 
development, he is doing the same thing — looking to estab- 
lish among recorded events characters which define objective 
relations. And physical and chemical laws — such as en- 
tropy, for example — which aim at describing real sequences 
tend to the same end. The temporal order is never under- 
stood until objective relations, transitive and asymmetrical, 
are discovered among its elements. 

Now that we know that time is a series, let us inquire into 
its properties. In the first place, the series is a simple one. 
That this is true within the mind of the individual is 
obvious ; for time is there one onward flow. But time is not 
a merely individual affair, relative to each biography. There 
are, of course, the many temporal processes, as many as 
there are individuals in the universe; but there is only one 
time. Yet how can time be single, when it is nothing apart 
from processes, nothing in itself ? 

The one time is the series which results from the correla- 
tion of the many processes. The principle of the correlation 
is this: those stages of individual processes are correlative 
which exist or existed together. To ask what events are 
contemporaneous with a given existing event is to ask what 
other events exist. These constitute a now or moment. Co- 



TIME 113 

existence is discovered through the processes of observa- 
tion, memory and induction, just as succession is. If we 
can observe existence, we can observe co-existence. We can 
observe, for example, the co-existence of many visual or 
other sensations. We can remember to have observed the 
co-existence of sun and moon in the sky on such and such a 
day. We reason to non-observable co-existences after the 
analogy of what we find to be habitual in our own minds. 
Having observed the regular co-existence of a, b, and c, we 
infer, after observing a and b, that c must also have been 
there. 

Russell has objected to theories such as ours which explain 
time as the abstraction from the correlation and order of 
processes that, since events form a many-one series — many 
events being co-present at a single moment — there must be 
an objective and independent order, through correlation with 
which events derive theirs. This independent order would 
be, of course, so-called absolute time. Co-presence, it is 
asserted, is always co-presence at a given time; the corre- 
lation of events with one another takes place only through 
their prior correlation with absolute time; events are cor- 
related with reference to time — time is not the abstract 
for their correlation. 

Yet this argument no more proves the independent exist- 
ence of time apart from processes than Russell's definition of 
cardinal number proves the existence of the number-series 
independent of numerable things and classes. Sameness of 
cardinal number is defined by means of similarity of classes, 
those classes which can be correlated through a one-one 



114 THE SELF AND NATURE 

relation having the same cardinal number. But sameness 
of cardinal number does not depend on the prior existence of 
cardinal numbers; rather conversely, the latter depend for 
their being on the existence of similar classes, of which they 
are the abstract conception. Similarly, the co-presence of 
events is not determined through relation to a moment 
of time which has being independent of them; a moment of 
time is simply the class of events which bear, or bore, to one 
another the relation of co-existence. Only after a moment 
has been defined through this correlation, can we speak of 
events as being at the same moment. A given moment is 
nothing but a level of events. Events are co-present simply 
because they co-exist or have co-existed. A particular 
moment in the series at which something occurs is deter- 
minable only with reference to other levels of co-existence, 
either as preceding or succeeding; it has no absolute position 
independent of the events which belong there. Absolute 
time, therefore, is of precisely the same type of being as the 
number-series — it is purely ideal. 

Yet Russell's defence of absolute time has value against all 
views of time as subjective. The correlation and order of 
processes is not a matter of arbitrary, personal taste, but is 
based on objective characters of them. If this is true, we 
have next to inquire whether the relation of co-existence 
which defines the correlation of events is an ideal or a real 
one. Is it like the relation of similarity between two colors 
or is it like the relation of equilibrium between two masses 
in a scale ? In either case, however, the relation would be 
objective — independent of mere point of view and coercive 



TIME 115 

on the understanding; for, as we shall show, even ideal rela- 
tions are based on facts as stubborn as any others, and just 
as independent of mind. Here, I think, two different 
theories can be entertained. One may hold either that co- 
existence is merely the possession of a common character 
— that of existence, in which case the relation would be 
ideal, and independent beings, if there were such, might 
belong to the same moment of time; or else co-existence 
involves contact, in which case the relation would be a real 
one, and there could be no independent beings. Of these 
views, the former is, I tliink, the true one. Co-existence 
does not involve contact, logically. I can conceive of things 
as co-existing without contact. Co-existence is the simpler 
fact, which contact implies. Mere co-existence is, then, an 
ideal relation; it is simply the possession of a common 
character — existence; it is one kind of similarity. On the 
other hand, we are certain of this — there are no co-existing 
individuals known to us which are not in contact; for, in 
order to be known, they must either be in direct contact with 
the self which finds them, or else in indirect contact through 
one another. The co-present elements of our world, at any 
rate, are in contact. 

A relation similar to that between co-existence and con- 
tact holds between sequence and causation. It seems at 
first sight as if a real sequence of elements a and b does not 
imply that a is the cause of b. Once more, the temporal rela- 
tion seems to be the simpler — causation implies it, but not 
vice versa; b may follow a, we think, without a being the 
cause of b. Yet so far as the sequence of events in any 



Il6 THE SELF AND NATURE 

individual whole is concerned, this is not true; if b follows 
a, it grows out of a, is caused by a. No event can happen to 
me, for example, unless it grows out of my present life. Yet 
cannot an event happen to you without my participation as 
cause ? The answer to this involves a causal problem — 
whether in any causal sequence the entire universe of exist- 
ing elements is involved, or whether this activity is restricted 
to a part only. We shall try to show that the fact of inter- 
action involves, not directly, but mediately, through the 
causal processes in neighboring individuals, the participa- 
tion of every individual in any individual causal process. 
Hence sequence without causation — in a world of contigu- 
ous elements, the only world that we know — is impossible. 
It would be possible only in a world of elements which were 
not in contact. 

Hence, in the world which we know, there are no independ- 
ent processes. The stream of existence wells up inside of 
relatively isolated centers and is divided into many distinct 
eddies; yet nature and the mind overlap and all nature is 
one flux. We got at the simplicity of time through the cor- 
relation of processes co-existent and sequent; but we might 
have derived it from the singleness of our world process. 

The most impressive of all the properties of time is per- 
haps its lack of double points. No moment is at once past 
and future to any other. Each divides the others into two 
mutually exclusive classes, the past and the future. Time 
does not at any point turn back on its course; time is 
irreversible, the past is irrevocable. Hence the sadness of 
the time process. This feature of time is not annulled by the 



TIME 117 

fact, to which we have called repeated attention, that much 
of the past is born anew into the present; for the complete 
past returns not again. There are no totally recurrent or 
reversible processes. Cyclical processes are really only 
partly such; for the co-existence of unlike phases of other 
such processes, and of irreversible processes, renders the 
former also, because of the unity of nature, not absolutely 
recurrent. Nowhere, either in space or in time, do we meet 
with the exact similarity of any whole; some aspects of 
a whole are found alike, but invariably others differ. By 
reason of the influence of the whole of reality upon any one 
of its parts, in order for any part of a contemporaneous 
world to be exactly like any part of a preceding epoch, two 
entire cross sections of time would have to be alike; but this 
is impossible. 

The uniqueness of moments follows clearly from the fol- 
lowing facts. First, there is the unity of process: the future 
grows out of the present, yet in doing so does not annihilate 
the entire present; but, although displacing part of it, 
grafts itself upon the permanent in it and exists along with it 
in one indivisible whole. Elements which are in contradic- 
tion with the abiding part of the present cannot, therefore, 
recur. Now much of the past is of this character. One's 
own boyhood, for example, could not recur; for, in order to 
do so, it would have to grow out of manhood, and so exist 
along with it in an instantaneous whole; we with our knowl- 
edge and disillusionment would have to be ignorant and 
hopeful as well. And this, of course, could not be; for to 
be a boy depends upon having just those limitations which 



Il8 THE SELF AND NATURE 

would be destroyed if our being were to flow together with 
his — knowledge and ignorance cannot co-exist. 

But might not the reinstatement of the past be gradual ? 
The unity of reality prevents only the sudden and entire 
recurrence of the past. If the lost elements were gradually 
replaced and the new ones gradually fell away, might not the 
old finally recur in its pristine completeness ? Might not 
various areas in our graph of time be repeated, not once only, 
but often in the course of time's infinity ? There would 
be a sort of universal alternation of generations, the same 
roles in the world drama being impersonated over and over 
again. Why should the image of time be a straight line 
rather than a curve which returns upon itself ? 

Yet reality, by its very nature, renders this impossible. 
Reality is organic; its changes are pervasive and cumula- 
tive; and, although it may decline and fall back to the 
general character of a preceding stage, the new stage will 
nevertheless bear traces of the intervening development, 
which will differentiate it from the earlier one. A differ- 
ence in position in the temporal series necessitates a dif- 
ference in character, just because each overlies a different 
range of events preceding. A moving body, for example, 
cannot be exactly the same after passing through points b 
and c as it was at a; for the being at these other points must 
have affected its nature, and this effect is, partly at least, 
indelible. 

Another property of the temporal series is infinity; by 
which I mean that before each moment of the past another 
moment can be found, and that after the present moment 



TIME 119 

there will always be another moment. In other words, there 
was no first moment and there will not be a last. 

Ex nihilo nihil fit is the ancient and sufficient reason 
against the supposition of a first moment. Every event that 
we know is an outgrowth, the coming to be of which was 
determined by something already existing. But a first 
moment of time would imply the existence of something 
from which all other things have originated, but which 
itself came from nothing — that is, just came to be without 
cause, or else always was, never had an origin at all. Now 
in either case the thing in question would be wholly excep- 
tional. Everything of which we have knowledge is a hap- 
pening and had an origin ; a static existence or an existence 
causa sui we know nothing of. 

For similar reasons time can have no end. In order for 
time to have an end, the universe would either have to cease 
to be or else arrive at a final state of quiescence. But that 
the universe cannot die is clear from the following considera- 
tions. The death of anything is always determined by some 
other thing which is rendered more stable in consequence; 
disintegration is always relative to growth; it is unthink- 
able that anything should perish of itself. To be sure, all 
existence tends, as we have seen, to pass away — existence 
has a leak in it, as Plato says — yet its passing is never 
separate from persistence and new orgination. A thing can 
perish only through a conflict of its own elements or a con- 
flict with external forces. But in each case some elements 
are strengthened: in the former, certain of its own; in the 
latter, part of its environment. The universe can, therefore, 



120 THE SELF AND NATURE 

never come to an end; for of external enemies it has none, 
and the disruption of some of its parts is relative to the 
growth of the rest. And, to consider the other alternative, 
the universe cannot arrive at a state of quiescence; for ex- 
perience involves activity, a seeking for something new, a 
striving for an end. 

Fourth, time is usually conceived to be continuous. Now 
by continuity we commonly mean many things which ought 
to be carefully distinguished. We mean, in the first place, 
that the succession of events; of which time is the form, does 
not, as we have insisted so often, consist of elements which 
exclude each other from existence; but that each new ele- 
ment, as it rises, finds the ground already occupied, grafts 
itself upon the relatively permanent there and lingers, exist- 
ing along with other things in their turn new. The series is 
not one of existences following upon non-existences; but of 
novelties rising into a world already there. 

In the second place, we mean by the continuity of time 
that there are no gaps, no empty places in the series. To our 
immediate experience, time seems to be continuous in this 
sense also; for to it, even the phenomena of sleep and swoon- 
ing are changes, not lapses. Introspection has no means of 
answering Lock's question whether the soul always thinks. 
Left to itself in its backward search, it can find only experi- 
ences which succeed and overlap each other. One could 
not experience a lapse in consciousness; for to do so would 
necessitate that one experience one's own non-existence — 
the very conception of which is self-contradictory. We 
come to believe in gaps, first, from the reports of our fellow 



TIME 121 

men who tell us that their own lives were awake and moving 
while ours were still and asleep. When we correlate individ- 
ual streams of consciousness, we see that to elements of one 
there correspond no elements of others. Second, the obser- 
vation, after sleep, that recurrent physical processes have 
seemingly skipped those intermediaries which we expect 
normally to occur confirms our belief. We prefer to regard 
our own lives as discontinuous rather than nature's, because 
we have learned to think of her as having an existence and 
habit superior to our own. But the existence of these gaps 
in the lives of individuals does not prove the discontinuity of 
time; for they are gaps only because there exist facts in the 
minds of other men, or in nature, to which they can be corre- 
lated; and wherever there are events, no matter where, 
there is time — time is the order of whatever events there 
happen to be. There is time between phases of an individ- 
ual's mind, because there are other events to which none 
correspond in this particular mind; but there is no time 
between times, no empty time; for where there are no 
events, there is not empty time, there is — nothing. Upon 
the broad stream of existence are carried many eddies which 
come and go and form anew; but their discontinuity does 
not make the time-stream itself discontinuous ; for its flow 
is just its changing existence, which always is. 

In the third place, we may mean by the continuity of time 
that time possesses those characteristics which make of any 
series what mathematicians call a continuum. In such a 
series, there are an infinite number of elements between any 
two, and every infinite sequence contains a limit in the 



122 THE SELF AND NATURE 

series. The temporal series is supposed to have the same 
structure as the points on a line. This assumption about 
time is employed in kinematics and dynamics in the treat- 
ment of motion, and in mathematical physics generally. All 
physical processes are measured in terms of motions, and 
motions are assumed to be continuous because space, over 
which motion proceeds, is supposed to be continuous. 

It is clear that the continuity of time, in this sense, is a 
hypothesis and not an observed fact. No one has ever 
observed continuity either in space or in motion. And in the 
changes which take place within the mind, it is impossible to 
find an infinity of elements. Observe as well as we can, we 
discover minimum waves of change, one after another, a dis- 
crete series. Just as there is a minimum visibile of space, so 
there is a minimum sensibile of change. Yet the fact that the 
changes within the mind are a discrete series does not 
prove that time itself is discrete. For time, we know, is not 
the order of any individual process, but that series which 
results from the correlation of all processes. Now it may 
very well be that, correlated with the discrete changes within 
the mind, there are an infinite number of changes in nature, 
and the fact that through the assumption of continuity 
science so well handles physical events makes this very prob- 
able. If this is true, then the temporal order, being the 
order which results from the correlation of all processes, 
is continuous in the mathematical sense of the term, and 
to the discrete pulses of consciousness we must ascribe a 
duration measured by the continuous and parallel changes 
in nature. 



TIME 123 

We are thus brought to the fifth property which is usually 
ascribed to time, and the last which we shall consider — 
duration. Just as any segment of a straight line is not only 
an order of elements but a length, so any part of time, it is 
said, is not only an order of changes but a length of time — 
a quantitative, measurable thing, a duration. But what is 
duration ? What do we mean when we say that anything 
lasts long ? And how can we determine the amount of this ? 

Duration is derived from a fact to which we have often 
called attention, namely, that certain events exist along 
with the rise and fall of others. Reality has breadth, a cross 
section, as it were; it is of strands interwoven; it is never a 
single thread. Of themselves, elements either exist or do not 
exist; they endure when their existence is correlated with 
the coming and going of other elements. If it were not for 
this correlation with parallel happenings, elements would 
not have duration, but only existence. The durational 
quality is a derivative of the correlation. This does not 
imply that duration is not real; for a quality which depends 
on relation is quite as real as any other; and we actually 
observe duration as a character of temporally related ele- 
ments of reality. 

The quantity of duration is also determined through cor- 
relation. An element endures or lasts long when it is co- 
existent with the emergence or passage of many other 
elements; it is evanescent when its existence is parallel to 
only a few happenings. Two elements last the same length 
of time when the existence of both is correlated with the 
same number of parallel happenings; one lasts longer than 



124 THE SELF AND NATURE 

another when to the existence of the latter there are corre- 
lated fewer happenings than to the existence of the former. 
Duration is improperly ascribed to the intervals between 
events, just as if there were something — absolute time — 
besides events; it really belongs to whatever exists parallel 
with them. Thus when we listen to the beating of a met- 
ronome and speak of the duration of the interval between 
any two beats, we are really talking about the duration of 
the listening and expecting self which exists along with 
them. 

Apart from the correlation of happenings, there is nothing 
objective about duration within the field of mind. A process 
of the same length as another — that is, one determined to 
be of the same length through correlation with other proc- 
esses — may nevertheless seem to be shorter or longer 
according to purely subjective conditions of interest, atten- 
tion, expectation and the like. To discover the " real 
length " of a process we always resort to the test of correla- 
tion; we compare it with the ticking of a clock or the 
passage of sand through the opening of an hourglass. 

When we pass beyond consciousness to the sphere of 
nature and the ideal realm of past and future, the same 
treatment of duration in terms of correlation presents itself 
as the only possible one. The length of time of any process 
is measured in terms of some other process. If they begin 
simultaneously and the one ceases before the other, the first 
is shorter than the second, and conversely; if they end to- 
gether, they are of equal duration. For example, the length 
of time which the earth takes to complete its orbit is said to 



TIME 125 

be twelve times as long as the length of time required by 
the moon to make her revolution around the earth; which 
means that twelve revolutions of the moon are correlated 
with only one of the earth. Or to say that the life of one 
man was longer than another can mean only that the exist- 
ence of the one was correlated with more revolutions of the 
earth. The length of time between any two events is also no 
absolute thing independent of events, but the number of 
other events which intervene between the two in question. 
The duration of the interval between the birth of Christ and 
the fall of the Roman Empire is nothing but the number of 
solar revolutions which intervened. What else could it be ? 
For besides the events, there is nothing. 

The duration of any process is, then, relative to the 
number of some other process with which its existence is 
correlated. Hence, since nature is a whole and there are no 
independent processes, we may, as Mach has shown, replace 
/ in physical equations by the path of the earth in its solar 
revolution, or by any other parallel process, provided we 
know the law of the concomitant variations. And this is 
exactly what, for all practical purposes, is done. The t of 
physical equations, like all other expressions for so-called 
absolute time, is just a symbol for the correlation of events. 

It is often objected to this theory of duration that if the 
rate of the earth's solar revolution should alter, then the 
duration of any process measured in terms of it would have 
to change also, even if the process in question had not itself 
changed at all. But the objection overlooks the truth that 
the rate of the process to be measured can itself be denned 



126 THE SELF AND NATURE 

only in terms of a correlation with some other motion ; that 
duration and rate of change are purely relative. If, relative 
to the earth's motion, a man's life measured one hundred 
and forty, instead of seventy years, it would be true to say 
that he lived twice as long; provided only that when he came 
to measure the number of his years by some other parallel 
process, he did not find, in terms of the latter, that his years 
were as many as heretofore. But if, when measured in terms 
of this process and every other, he found the same doubling, 
then his life would actually be twice as long as it was before. 
And he would experience this to be true — his feeling for 
duration would report it. A farmer who crowded into his 
life twice as many sowings and reapings would feel, provided 
the other events of his life were also doubled, that his life 
was twice as long. And to pose as an objection to the rela- 
tivity of duration the question, what would happen if the 
rate of change of all processes were to be altered alike — 
would real duration be altered ? shows that the inquirer has 
not yet grasped the truth that the rate of a process has no 
meaning except with reference to some other process, and 
that therefore the rate of all processes has no meaning at all; 
for there is no further process with which to compare them. 
Rate of change has no meaning when applied to the process 
of the universe as a whole; but only with reference to 
part processes defined in relation to one another. 

Bergson, who believes that there is something real in 
duration apart from correlation, seeks to make this convinc- 
ing by putting the question, why does not the future come 
to be all at once ? If duration were not real in itself, what 



TIME 1 27 

would prevent the crowding of the events of a day into a 
second, and if into a second, then into an infinitesimally 
small part of a second — into an instant ? To this we 
answer, in the first place, that no argument of ours has 
done anything to destroy the subjective determinants of 
the sense of duration. The seeming long and the seeming 
short of processes must always exist and vary while there is 
interest, expectation, impatience. But these factors, we 
insist, are not independent of the order and mutual correla- 
tion of events, upon which the objective durational quality 
of reality depends. To hasten or postpone an event means, 
objectively, to change its order relatively to other events; 
to bring it before or after other events which usually inter- 
vene and are expected. If I expect my friend in the evening 
and he hastens his coming and appears at noon, this means 
simply that certain events which I had expected to precede 
his coming now follow it. To have to wait for an event, to 
say of it that a certain length of time will elapse before it 
occurs, means that certain other phenomena will inevitably 
intervene to consciousness. So long as events do not occur 
simultaneously, but in a determinate order, they cannot 
happen instantaneously; and an event which comes after 
another expected event will always seem to take a longer 
time in coming; whether it takes an hour or a second has 
meaning only with reference to parallel processes, in the 
fashion already explained. Finally, in accordance with what 
we have established, it would be senseless to talk about the 
length of time necessary for the coming to be of the entire 
future, because duration has no meaning when applied to 



128 THE SELF AND NATURE 

the world process, but only when applied to part processes 
measured in terms of one another. There is, likewise, no 
meaning to such an expression as " the duration of past 
time "; for time — the array which results from the final 
correlation and ordering of all events — has itself no dura- 
tion ; only separate sequences, which can be correlated with 
other sequences, possess duration. We can talk of the dura- 
tion of any single process, but never of the duration of all 
processes. 



CHAPTER VI 

CAUSALITY 

THROUGH all our previous studies we have observed 
that the flux of reality is not absolute, but relative to 
the rhythmical recurrence of its elements. By reason of this, 
reality possesses a pattern like that of a musical composition 
in which themes are constantly repeated. 

For the existence of this pattern men have always sought 
an explanation. Since an unpatterned world is just as 
thinkable as a patterned one, they have asked for a reason 
why the actual world should be of the one type rather than 
of the other. But more important as an incentive to inquiry 
than any purely speculative questioning has been the practi- 
cal need of predicting the future with confidence, possible 
only if the rhythm of the world process is no chance fact 
which might become otherwise, but based on some necessity 
guaranteeing its permanence. Now by causation we mean 
precisely such a necessity in the rhythm of change as makes 
possible a deductive knowledge of change. 

However, although we undoubtedly possess a knowledge 
of this kind, the causal necessity which should be its founda- 
tion has always proved difficult to discover. If we examine 
the sense world, we find no necessity such as we seek. We 
find only a rhythm in the alteration of qualities, but no 
necessity which might compel the continuance of the 



130 THE SELF AND NATURE 

rhythm. Hume's statement of the situation still remains 
unanswered. 

This conclusion has, to be sure, been called in question by 
certain recent thinkers, whose views deserve examination, 
despite the fact that they have not changed the result. The 
reason why we do not find any necessity in the changes of 
things, we are told, is because we neglect a part of their 
nature, which, although incapable of being perceived by 
the senses, is nevertheless discernible — by the intellect. 
Things have a logical, as well as a sensible aspect, namely 
law, which is the real cause of their changes and the basis 
of deduction. Substitute constants, representing the par- 
ticular conditions of the movement of an object, for the 
variables in the laws of motion, and you can deduce future 
positions. From the mere law, the universal and logical 
nature of a motion, you cannot, of course, deduce its future; 
but if you take the law in connection with the special 
conditions, the empirical sensuous aspects of the situation, 
you will have success. Causal necessity would therefore 
be logical necessity, and we could understand the former 
by seeing it to be a case of the latter, which is well known 
to us. 

We ourselves, in our chapter on perception, called atten- 
tion to the fact that our perception of things included not 
only a contact with part of their sensuous totality, but also 
a knowledge of their past. Inevitably, in all perception, the 
history of a thing comes under our purview. And this his- 
tory is an ideal reality, of which we become cognizant only 
through the intellect, not through the senses. What we call 



CAUSALITY 1 3 1 

the law of a thing is very largely just this; for it is at least a 
statement of how the thing acted under typical conditions. 
Yet the law always involves more — the assertion that the 
thing will act in the same way under similar conditions; 
which is belief, not perception of fact. The only reality 
which the law can report is the ideal reality of the thing's 
past; it cannot report the future, because the future has no 
being. And it is not at all clear how the ideal record of a 
thing's past can drive it forward to repeat the pattern of the 
past. In themselves, the truths about the past of a thing do 
not imply anything as to its future; only when they are 
taken together with some further proposition asserting the 
continuance of the past rhythm, is deduction possible. But 
it is just this latter proposition which is in dispute, and its 
basis still to seek. 

The insufficiency of the foregoing theory of causation is 
also evident in the following inference which has been drawn 
from it by its supporters. One element in every formulated 
causal law is time. Hence if the law of a change is its cause, 
time must be a part-cause. For example, in the motion of a 
body time must be effective just as mass and force are. Yet 
those who have followed us in our discussions will realize 
that time cannot be the cause of any process. For time is 
either just the flux itself or else its ideal record. But the 
former does not carry us beyond the given moment, does not 
contain any prevision of future moments; and the latter, 
being itself a result of the process, cannot as such be a factor 
in its generation; as a record, time is post factum, and there- 
fore ineffective. 



132 THE SELF AND NATURE 

The failure to find causal necessity has led in some quar- 
ters to a frank abandonment of the search for it. There is no 
necessity in natural phenomena, it is said; the predictions 
of science do not imply its existence; for all that they pre- 
suppose is a high degree of probability. The empirical 
regularity of phenomena is no indication of necessary rela- 
tions between them, but only a chance form of them, a run 
of luck in the infinite game played by natural forces in space 
and in time. The possibility of induction rests on the fact 
that we happen to be living in a part of space and time where 
by chance there is this regularity. Remote regions of space 
and time may not exhibit uniformity, and consequently our 
empirical laws may not hold there at all. The laws of science 
represent fair samples of the constitution of the part of the 
world beneath our ken, the degree of their probability de- 
pending on the random character of our sampling. To use 
the illustration of Charles Peirce, just as I can gauge the 
general character of a cargo of wheat if I take samples from 
various parts of the hold, so I can discover the probable 
character of a class of natural phenomena by the exami- 
nation of a multitude of cases covering a wide area and 
selected at random. 

But this theory, when used as a basis for the prediction of 
the character of new events, seems to me to suffer from the 
same fallacy that was noted in the interpretation of causal 
necessity as logical necessity. For it assumes that the 
future already exists possessed of a definite constitution 
which can be sampled. Induction from past to future is 
treated in exactly the same way as induction from one exist- 



CAUSALITY 133 

ing phenomenon to another. But, although you can dis- 
cover the nature of the past and the present by the process 
of sampling; since both have constitutions, the one ideal 
and the other real; you cannot thus discover the future; for 
it does not exist to be sampled. You have got to discover 
the future from the past and the present; but I do not see 
that the theory under examination shows how this can be 
done. There is no reason why the supposed " run of luck " 
should not stop at this instant. If there is no necessity in the 
course of events, if everything be due to chance, then, no 
matter how uniform the past may have been, the future may 
be entirely different. Since the future offers new worlds to 
sample, you cannot infer anything as to the character of the 
new from the character of the old. Induction into the future 
is not like determining the proportion of black and white 
balls in a bag from a random selection from them; but 
rather like determining the contents of a bag unopened from 
one already examined. Peirce's theory of induction is good 
for space, but not for time. 

Moreover, the problem of causation cannot be brushed 
aside, as Bergson would have us do, by pointing to the unity 
of process. His line of reasoning, with the basis of which 
we are already familiar, is as follows. No process is a suc- 
cession of separate stages, one following upon another. 
Motion, for example, is not the series of occupations of posi- 
tion described by mathematicians. Indeed, no occupation 
of position is ever given as real; what we find empirically is 
a going from one position to another, a transition or flight. 
The taking up of a new position is already implied in the 



134 THE SELF AN NATURE 

abandonment of the old; hence in the present — the moving 
present, of course; for that alone is real — the future is 
already given. 

Yet this presence of the future in the present does not take 
us far. It carries us only to the immediate future, to that 
which is even now coming to be. It takes the moving body 
into the neighboring points, but not beyond. The new is, to 
be sure, already coming to be with the passage of the old; 
this is the very fact of change, as we have seen ; but what we 
are now trying to understand is not change — for we do not 
need to, since it is directly given — but necessity in change, 
the tie between present and future which enables us to pre- 
dict what the future will be like. In so far as we can find the 
immediate future developing in the present, we know what 
will eventuate ; but what we also want to know is — the 
character of the remote from the nature of the immediate. 
The physicist is as sure of the path of a moving body for ten 
minutes as for ten seconds ; the physiologist is as certain of 
the adult form of the embryo as of the child form. And the 
remote fact is not given in the immediate; for if it were, 
there would be no difference between present and future, 
between what is and what is not yet. The temporal process 
is not so highly unified that one cannot oppose the idea of 
what is to be to that which already is, as the fulfillment or 
violation of any expectation attests. 

Hence, as the result of an age-long search on the part of 
philosophers, we may conclude that there is no discoverable 
necessity in the transformations of the sense world. 

Unlike the world of sense phenomena, however, we seem 
to find in the inner life the necessity which we seek. We find 



CAUSALITY 135 

it, namely, in impulse, interest, plan. This is an old idea, 
and a true one, I believe, but the objections which have 
been urged against it have never been answered or the diffi- 
culties which it involves successfully faced. 

In order for there to be necessity in sequential phenomena, 
certain things must be true. First, there must be a bond 
between present and future of such a kind that we can 
understand how the latter must grow out of the former in a 
determinate fashion. Second, this growth must be no mere 
inner development, but a response to an outer solicitation, 
a facing of a situation, an adjustment. All causation in- 
volves the functional relations of things: contraction in 
relation to cold, expansion in relation to heat, organism 
responding to stimulation, and the like. Third, the neces- 
sity must be of such a kind that it carries us beyond the 
immediate future, enabling us to predict long courses of 
action. 

Now the various phenomena of what is broadly called 
will all conform to these requirements. Consider the first of 
them. Every impulse contains, itself being a present reality, 
a nisus to development into the future, to fulfillment. Every 
interest, every plan, unless opposed, must work itself out, 
and it must work itself out in the special fashion required by 
its character as special interest, plan or purpose. These all 
require certain determinate acts in order to fulfillment. 
Next, consider the second point. No act of will is a 
purely internal phenomenon. Interest is in something, 
desire is of something, wish and will are for something which 
is to grow out of a definite situation in the present existing 



136 THE SELF AND NATURE 

world. They are all responses to the given, terminating in 
changes of the given. For example, the presence of food 
excites a desire which releases an action upon the object, 
transforming it into something that satisfies. Third, in plan 
and purpose we have forms of will which fulfill the third 
requirement. If a man wants to walk to a definite point, we 
know that he must cover the intervening points along his 
course; if it is his plan to build a house, a whole series 
of acts stretching far into the future can be foretold as 
necessarily related to that purpose. 

And in the phenomena of will alone does there exist the 
possibility of making the past a law for the future, and so a 
means of prediction. We have seen — the man of science 
desires some insight into the fact that through a knowledge 
of the past he can deduce a knowledge of the future. There 
was no apparent means of doing this in the case of purely 
external facts. In that realm, the moving present is given 
and the past is discoverable, but no relation is given, or can 
be discovered, of the present to the past such as would make 
possible the understanding of the future through the past. 
There, we cannot see how the present can contain in it an 
impetus to imitate the past. Whoever predicts the future 
conduct of a thing from its past, believes that the past binds 
its behaviour, compelling to reinstatement; but, as we have 
seen, a law is given only as a record, although we use it as a 
statement of the future. This is the leap in causal deduction, 
the mystery in external phenomena. But in the inner life all 
becomes clear — we can understand how the past becomes 
a law for the future, how that which we know only back- 



CAUSALITY 137 

wards can be read forwards. Let pleasure result from the 
doing of any deed, then the act becomes necessarily self- 
repeating. The memory becomes a plan; the future imitates 
the past. In interest, in plan, in habit, we understand how 
a law — a statement of past conduct — becomes a vera causa 
and a guide to the future. As remembered, then as turned 
forwards, the past, which is otherwise only an ideal record 
of that which was, becomes a plan and determines the future 
to be as itself was. 

There is another feature of the causal process which, un- 
clear in the external world, becomes clear when we find its 
analogue within the mind; I mean selective reaction. It 
may be that each thing responds to everything in its en- 
vironment, but certainly its responses to some things are 
more sensitive and far-reaching than to others. The magnet 
that elicits responses from iron filings leaves silver unmoved ; 
gold that remains unaffected by sulphuric acid dissolves in 
the presence of aqua regia. This phenomenon, so striking 
throughout nature, is most abundantly illustrated by the 
facts which the chemists call elective affinity. Now in 
nature, I say, no one can understand the necessities in these 
selective reactions. For example, we do not see what there 
is about gold which should make it indifferent to all acids 
except the one which, because of this preference, we call 
royal. If you say, there is no need of going further than the 
fact of selection itself, I answer — I cannot help seeking 
some basis for it; for I assume one every time that I expect 
the substance to act selectively in the same way when put 
again in contact with the acid. If it was a mere brute fact 



138 THE SELF AND NATURE 

before, how can I be sure that some other mere brute fact will 
not eventuate on this new occassion ? What was not neces- 
sary then is surely not necessary now; or if a necessity has 
been created by the past reaction, I have a right to demand 
some understanding of it. 

Now in the inner life we possess such an understanding. 
The botanist, indifferent to the birds, sights the flowers. 
Suppose it was chance that first impelled him to make this 
selection. At any rate, it is not chance which makes him do 
it a second time. For the pleasure in his past experience 
created in him an interest in that type of object, whereas he 
has none in the other types. From a purely external stand- 
point, each object has its face turned towards every other 
object, and it is incomprehensible why it should look away 
from all others to fix its gaze upon one. We cannot find any- 
thing in it which should determine this favoritism. But if 
we enter into the thing and find there an interest for a special 
kind of object, then we understand. An interest is precisely 
that which creates a touch between one thing and another, 
kindling to exclusive interaction. And this interest exists in 
the thing in such wise that, knowing it to be there, we can 
predict what will occur. 

Bergson has adduced the following as an objection to the 
theory that in the phenomena of volition we actually find 
necessity. That all necessity rests upon identity is the fun- 
damental premiss of his argument. But between a plan 
and its fulfillment there is no identity, he says; for, if there 
were, there would be no need of any action or process in 
order for the one to pass over into the other. The one does 



CAUSALITY 139 

not contain the other, hence by no purely logical operation 
can the other be deduced from it. 

Well, it is indeed true that there is not complete identity 
between a plan and its fulfillment; but even logical deduc- 
tion is not mere identification. Take any simple case of 
deduction; suppose, for example, that I know that A is 
greater than B and that B is greater than C, I can conclude 
that A is greater than C. I get a new proposition in deduc- 
tion, not something identical with the old; the conclusion 
follows necessarily from the premisses, but is not identical 
with them. Just so with the realization of a plan. There is 
more in the realization than there is in the plan. Even if 
nothing were added to the abstract characters of the plan 
through the process of realizing it, still, the fact of its being 
a plan realized, and not a mere plan, would be sufficient to 
make it different. Despite all this, however, we claim that 
given the conditions, the one follows necessarily from the 
other. And what do we mean by necessarily ? Why, just as 
we mean when we say that the conclusion follows necessarily 
from the premisses that, if the latter are true, the former is 
true also; so we mean, given the plan and given certain 
conditions, the realization of the plan comes to be. 

There is, however, Bergson asserts, a great difference be- 
tween the two cases; for in logic the conclusion is eternally 
implicit in the premisses; while in action the realization 
does not co-exist with the plan; there is a going forth, a 
development taking time. And there surely is this difference 
between the two cases; premisses and conclusions do co- 
exist eternally; time and process enter into the drawing of 



I40 THE SELF AND NATURE 

conclusions, but not into their logical being in relation to the 
premisses. But now, despite this difference, we assert the 
equal rationality of the purposeful process. For, just as we 
perceive that the truth of the conclusion must co-exist with 
the truth of the premisses, so we perceive that the realiza- 
tion must come to be, not be, when the plan is given — the 
element of becoming, of passage and novelty, is necessary. 
A plan that was eternally realized, or co-existed with its 
realization, would be no plan at all; and a plan that would 
not realize itself under favoring circumstances is unthink- 
able. The plan itself not only demands that it become real, 
but also that it become real. 

The entire active process is intelligible from one end to the 
other. To recapitulate: First, it is unthinkable that the 
plan should not become real, given favoring circumstances; 
that realization should not follow conception. Second, it is 
unthinkable that the realization should co-exist with the 
plan ; the passage from one to the other, the process or be- 
coming of one into the other, is also necessary. Third, the 
character of that which becomes real — what it is that be- 
comes real — is also necessary; it is unthinkable that any- 
thing else than what is desired should become real. Hence, 
in the sphere of purposive change, it is not only possible to 
deduce the future from the present, the not-given from the 
given, but to find the necessity which makes this possible. 
Purposive change has a logic of its own ; it is not a matter of 
brute fact or of chance. 

Bergson offers one more point in his criticism of the 
notion that purpose makes the necessity in change. He says 



CAUSALITY 141 

we are always aware during the realization of a plan " qu'il 
est encore temps de s'arreter." Yet this is true only when 
another desire intervenes to interrupt; when we remain 
within the original volition itself, such a thought cannot 
arise, and, given favorable objective conditions, it is im- 
possible to stop. 

The real difficulties in the way of understanding causal 
necessity in terms of action arise, as Hume pointed out, 
when we take these objective conditions into account. In 
order for any purpose to be realized, the body, and usually 
the external world, must co-operate. Suppose, to take a 
simple illustration of the intervention of the body, it is my 
purpose to walk. In order for this purpose to be realized, my 
limbs must move and neuro-muscular paths be intact and 
operate. If we are to find any voluntary action intelligible, 
we cannot take it merely as a spiritual event, but must 
understand it concretely in its relation to the body. 

It must frankly be admitted that these difficulties cannot 
be completely solved. The involution of the soul in the body, 
and through this in the external world, is too complex and 
too little within the circle of our direct experience to be 
understood in any detail. Yet we can begin to understand; 
we can get from within our experience a hint as to how the 
whole is planned. We must recall points of view which were 
developed in our study of the relation of soul and body. In 
the first place, we saw that the body did not lie wholly out- 
side of our experience. The muscular sensations of walking 
are a part of the limbs, which co-exist with the purpose to 
walk in one unified experience. The purpose and the physi- 



I42 THE SELF AND NATURE 

cal process of walking are not two disparate facts, merely 
sequent upon each other and externally brought together, 
but elements in a whole. There is no desire to walk without 
incipient sensations of walking, and as the walking proceeds, 
the desire and its fulfillment co-exist and are functions of 
one another, just as thought and expression are. Of course 
there is a very large part of the body engaged in the process 
of walking which does not come within our immediate ex- 
perience — the cerebral regions, for example — and this 
fact sets a problem to any one who would understand the 
process as a whole. But, as we shall try to show, the whole is 
perspicuous if viewed in the light of the part; the portion of 
the body which lies beyond the mind is of like nature with 
the portion which is given within it, hence similar purposes 
may operate there in conjunction with our own. 

Similar reflections weigh with us when we consider the 
realization of purpose in the external world. Suppose we 
take the case of a painter sketching from memory. Here a 
plan is being realized in a material external to the body, yet 
not external to the plan and to experience; for the pigments 
and the canvas, as visual and tactile sensations, are elements 
of the mind. Of course there is a large part of the reality of 
these things which lies beyond our experience; but, again, 
the whole is like the part. And we can understand — or at 
least begin to understand — the working of the plan in the 
whole, through its working in the part within the mind. Our 
insight depends here upon the insight which we have already 
gained, that the physical world, while external spatially to 
the body, is not wholly external to the mind. 



CAUSALITY 143 

In the inner life of ourselves or of our fellow men, there- 
fore, we claim to understand the processes which occur there 
in so far as we can find them the expressions of purposes, 
interests and habits. It is, of course, a matter of doubt 
whether any purpose shall ever be realized; but this doubt 
is due to our dependence on the world, to our involution in 
its larger realities. Yet this, at least, we know, that when we 
find ourselves in the tide of our wills, in the rush of our im- 
pulses, the thing must go on; or if anything shall stop us, it 
will be of the same stream that bears us. And, in so far as 
we can sympathize with the life of our fellows, can enter 
into its motives, we can rely on it, predict it, find the end 
of one piece with the beginning, its necessary sequent. 

On the other hand, in so far as our lives are dependent on 
external realities, they are chance and uncomprehended, be- 
cause involved in a reality which we do not understand. We 
have, to be sure, discovered there what we call laws, and at 
times, in the pride of success, have believed that we under- 
stood for that reason; but disenchantment follows philo- 
sophic reflection — the laws themselves are not necessary. 
We assume the existence of necessity there — every bit of 
inductive reasoning presupposes it — but so far we have 
been unable to find it. 

And we can never find it. We can only assume it. And he 
who refuses to make any sort of hypothesis, whose intellect- 
ual conscience forbids him to believe aught except the given, 
can never understand. He only can hope to understand who 
finds it reasonable to interpret the processes of the external 
world after the analogy of the inner world — who supposes 



144 THE SELF AND NATURE 

that wherever he seems to find the merely external, there is 
also an internal; wherever law, purpose and interest. 

People who accept this interpretation usually argue that 
it is as reasonable to believe nature to be an expression of 
purpose as the bodies of one's fellow men. Of our fellow men 
we have given only the bodies, the external, with their 
habits and activities ; yet we assume the existence of a 
soul-life like our own, in terms of which we can under- 
stand the latter as necessary. Why, they argue, should 
one not believe of the whole of nature what one believes 
of the part ? 

Yet it must be admitted that we bear to this part an ex- 
ceptional relation. For we are able to carry out concretely 
the purposive interpretation of the bodies of our fellow men, 
a thing which we are unable to do in the case of mere 
nature. We possess ideas which correspond to the plans of 
our fellows, in the light of which we can understand their 
behaviour; we possess no such ideas with reference to the 
rest of the world. 

Hence, although we accept this traditional argument from 
analogy, it is not the one which we are employing. We are 
seeking some basis for induction; we wish to conceive of 
natural phenomena as necessary, else we can place no reli- 
ance upon them, we can justify no bit of the confidence which 
we place in them. Now there are just two types of necessity 
known to us — the logical and the purposive. That there is 
no logical necessity in natural phenomena was proved by 
Hume, and the recent attempts to show the contrary we have 
found to be failures. The other remains. We cannot, to be 



CAUSALITY 145 

sure, prove that it exists in nature; yet that it may exist 
there without contradiction we shall attempt to show. It 
is, at any rate, the only hypothesis which we are capable 
of framing. And is it unlikely that the same type of 
necessity which exists within the mind should characterize 
the whole from which the mind sprang and upon which it 
depends ? 

From the nature of the case, we are unable to do more than 
offer an abstract and general description of the hypothesis 
which we are defending. Stated in as simple terms as pos- 
sible, it is this. We suppose that the laws of nature are the 
expressions of interests and values. Wherever there exists 
permanent form, whether static, the togetherness of quali- 
ties, or dynamic, rhythmic change, we suppose that there 
exists a value in the pattern, guaranteeing the endurance of 
the one and the carrying out of the other. Just as I can be 
sure when I hear the beginning of a sonata that I shall also 
hear the end of it; for I know that there exists an interest in 
the whole ; so when I see an object fall, I know that it will 
reach the earth, because I am confident that the given part of 
the process is the beginning of a whole intention which de- 
mands the end as its completion. Just as we find our own 
plans and interests conferring intelligibility upon our experi- 
ence, weaving it into systems, so we suppose, alongside of 
our own and interwoven with our own, that there exist 
other plans and interests making of the whole sense world 
self-repeating patterns. 

It must not be thought that we are seeking to deduce the 
outer sensuous world from the inner spiritual world. The 



I46 THE SELF AND NATURE 

quality of experience cannot be deduced from its value. The 
interest in colors, for example, could not have produced blue 
or violet; for how could an interest pre-exist to its object ? 
The co-existence of the two is the ultimate fact. What we 
assert is only this : that interests in definite patterns of sense 
qualities having somehow arisen, we can understand as 
necessary their conservation and repetition. 

One further point remains to be developed in this chapter. 
Necessity, we have seen, is experienced in the rush of instinct 
or in the following out of a plan; the end, we know, must 
follow from the beginning. But a certain condition is in- 
volved which we have not mentioned, but have taken for 
granted all along, that no new impulse should develop 
within the process which we are experiencing or studying. 
For, plainly, this new development would not be without 
effect upon the original impulse and so, from a mere knowl- 
edge of the latter, we could not predict the outcome ; all our 
calculations would be rendered uncertain by the possibility 
of an unforeseen deviation. Now all scientific prediction 
rests upon the assumption, I take it, that a system isolated 
from outside influences will go as we find it going, and will 
exhibit no new tendencies, unless they are awakened from 
the outside. We are able to get hold, once and for all, of the 
substance which we are studying, which we could not do if 
it were subject to irresponsible changes from within. We 
assume that a body, if left to itself, will move in the fashion 
in which we find it moving; or that a man, if unhindered 
or uninfluenced by his fellows or his surroundings, will carry 
out his present plan. 



CAUSALITY 147 

It seems difficult not to accept this assumption. Against 
it one might perhaps urge some principle of native change, 
in accordance with which all things must be transformed, 
purposes not excepted — iravra pet. But the only principle 
of change in things is the necessity which we have been 
describing, that an impulse should work itself out into fulfill- 
ment, should run itself down to the end; yet this involves no 
change in the character of the activity itself as we have 
known it before. When such changes seem to occur, we shall 
find, I think, that we are not concerned with a simple sub- 
stance or activity, but with a complex one; and that the 
changes are due, therefore, not to any spontaneity within a 
single impulse, but to the influence of each of the elements in 
the whole upon the rest. Every concrete activity which we 
study possesses such a complexity. And we notice that the 
more complex the inner world of the tendency, or the more 
varied its environment, so much the more numerous and 
varied and rapid are the changes which it undergoes. It is 
impossible to verify an absolutely native spontaneity. All 
deviations within an activity are due, therefore, to its rela- 
tions to other activities, and their logic must be studied in 
this light. 

Hence we are justified in assuming that each activity is a 
definite thing which can be known to be what we find it, and 
that it will work itself out in accordance with its aim. This 
does not imply, of course, that there is any tendency which 
is purely internal. The unit of action is always a response to 
an environment. A body moves upon impact, an organism 
responds to stimulation, a man desires something that he 



I48 THE SELF AND NATURE 

sees and touches, his purposes are directed to the world out- 
side. By the definiteness of an action we mean only the ex- 
clusion of occult influences which cannot be known through 
any survey of it. And we have seen how, from a knowledge 
of present impulse and plan, we can deduce the future, pro- 
vided that new external influences do not intervene. 

Yet even when new influences are brought into the field, 
we claim the power of predicting the outcome. We not only 
assume that from the given motion of an iron ball we can 
predict its future course, if left to itself, but we also believe 
that if we bring a magnet into its neighborhood we can 
determine beforehand that its motion will be deflected in a 
particular fashion. We know not only that if we leave a man 
alone with his purpose he will carry it out, but that if we 
offer him some temptation — gold or place or woman's 
wiles — he will abandon it, and his whole career will be dif- 
ferent. How can we know this ? Wherein lies the necessity 
of such changes ? 

We usually base our predictions on past observations that 
such things have deviated thus under the same or similar 
circumstances. And this means — in terms of our interpre- 
tation — that along with the tendency which was fulfilling 
itself before the new situation arose, there existed in the 
thing a counter tendency which only needed stimulation in 
order to waken into life again. If there be, as we assume 
there is, some necessity in these reactions enabling us to pre- 
dict them before they occur, its basis must be an impulse or 
interest demanding them, which from a former manifesta- 
tion, we judge to be still present. 



CAUSALITY 149 

Here it may seem as if we were led into the difficulty of 
accepting the notion of the potential. In what way, it may 
be asked, can tendencies pre-exist to their solicitation ? For 
we suppose them to be already present as a basis for the 
new reactions. Take it within our own experience. Is an 
impulse real before it finds an object and begins to function ? 
If so, are we not driven either into the quagmires of the 
" unconscious " or the barren wastes of " matter " ? The 
larger aspects of this problem cannot be touched upon here ; 
yet so much can be indicated — we must steer clear at once 
of Scylla and Charybdis. In order to do this, we shall have 
to keep in mind the extraordinary complexity of experience. 
Experience often has a sham simplicity which misleads, due 
to the dominance of some special interest impelling to the 
belief that it is all, while around and in subtle ways hiding 
within it are minor impulses which exist none the less be- 
cause they are not in the focus. Much more exists in the 
mind than is ever at any moment known by it. 

If we accept this solution, we can understand a diver- 
gence in a response, or a new reaction, to be necessary only 
when we can assume it to be already prefigured in the given 
as impulse or tendency una wakened. The deflection of the 
iron could be understood on the assumption of some interest 
of iron in magnets, and the response of man to gold or woman 
would be given beforehand in some obscure desire. 

Yet it sometimes happens, at least in that part of the 
cosmos which we know most intimately, in the world of 
human affairs, that there occur novel deviations or develop- 
ments of plan, in response to new situations, for which we can 



ISO THE SELF AND NATURE 

find no tendencies hitherto. We are unable to predict such 
reactions, because we have never seen things act thus before, 
and they could not have occurred quite so before, because 
the situations out of which they grow are unique. 

Now in such cases we can follow either one of two paths. 
We may assert dogmatically that novel reactions are neces- 
sary as expressions of tendencies which pre-exist to their 
manifestation; our inability to find them being due to our 
limitations of knowledge. Thus the whole course of the 
world would be necessary. This view corresponds with the 
ideal of science — the possibility of predicting the entire 
future from the present, and the rigid exclusion of chance 
from the universe. 

On the other hand, we may claim that there is no necessity 
in the original responses of things, that is, in the first re- 
sponses to novel situations, and therefore no possibility of 
predicting them. Tendencies do not pre-exist to situations; 
they are not merely brought into play by them; they are 
created by them, not de novo, of course, for they grow out of 
tendencies already extant, yet neither as a mere repetition of 
them nor as capable of being deduced from them. When once 
established however, we are able to learn from watching 
them what the future responses under identical conditions 
will be. For out of every situation arises an impulse which 
tends to perpetuate whatever reaction happens to take 
place. A certain way of responding yields pleasure; this 
creates a desire for that type of action ; hence whenever the 
situation recurs, the desire now existing must produce the 
expected result. Only the first responses to new situations 



CAUSALITY 151 

are fortuitous; all subsequent ones are bound to the form 
of the original. 

In favor of this latter theory we urge again our actual in- 
ability to predict what a thing will do under novel circum- 
stances. We have to try and see, experiment and await the 
outcome. The result, of course, grows out of the given situa- 
tion, but there is no necessity about it; it might well have 
been otherwise. In the world of human affairs we find 
sudden decisions, adventurous undertakings in response 
to untried situations, for which we can find no adequate 
preparatory motives. To suppose that such motives were 
already there seems arbitrary. The scientific ideal of reduc- 
ing every event to law is far from being realized, and no 
ideal is the measure of the real. All that we need to pro- 
vide is a basis for such laws as we actually discover, for such 
inductions as we can actually carry out. 

Now such a basis we believe we have provided. For once 
a certain type of action has occurred with its attendant 
value, no matter how fortuitously in the first instance, it is 
henceforth established in the world's rhythm and must be 
sought anew when opportunity arises, that is, when a like 
situation recurs. We know, therefore, that the type of 
action will necessarily be repeated by the agent, given the 
recurrence of the situation. A single observation of the 
behaviour of a thing suffices for the discovery of the law of 
its future action ; for the law itself is established by a single 
act. As a rule, of course, we do not observe an original 
reaction, but a habit; the law, if new to us, is not new to the 
thing. And when we infer, not the future behaviour of a 



152 THE SELF AND NATURE 

thing from that same thing's past, but the behaviour of 
another like thing, we are justified in doing so, because the 
things which we are studying are alike, not only externally, 
but in their inner impulses and secret motions. In such 
cases we are not concerned with the free and fortuitous 
development of impulses, but with the expressions of im- 
pulses already in operation and in response to situations 
ages old. Our ability to infer from the conduct of one thing 
to the conduct of another under like circumstances is based 
on the possession by both of the same innate tendencies. 
Why there are so many things alike is a further problem. 
In the biological world a common origin explains com- 
mon nature, and, very probably, this is the explanation of 
the phenomenon everywhere. But, however this be, the 
existence of similar things is a fact, and provides a basis 
for induction. 

It is clear that, according to this view, law is a develop- 
ment. The first responses, the original evaluations, are sub- 
ject to no law. There is necessity and law only where there 
is a will seeking fulfillment. But under novel conditions we 
do not know what we want, we have as yet no will; hence 
there is no necessity that we should react in one way rather 
than in another. Only when the response is made and an 
estimation fixed, a habit formed, is there a law. Things first 
act fortuitously; this action creates a value in the action, 
a demand for its repetition, leading to the imitation of the 
past — this is the birth of law. Since no situation is ever 
exactly like an old one, there is an element of indetermi- 
nation in all acts; even when we bring an old demand or 



CAUSALITY 153 

principle to bear upon them, there is an adjustment of it 
unpredictable and non-logical. Since science is interested in 
the rational and predictable aspects of reality, it always 
seeks the same rather than the different, the necessary 
rather then the fortuitous. It seeks a law for every seeming 
novelty, a habit in every adventure. And since the new 
always grows out of the old, being a modification of the old 
in adjustment to new conditions, the type can always be 
discovered, even in the most wayward of happenings. Yet 
they can never be reduced to the type. 

There are, I think, two fairly persuasive, although not 
cogent, arguments against this view. In the first place, one 
might claim that the mere fact that the new grows out of the 
old involves necessity. Every action, as a reaction, must be 
determined to be what it is by the nature of the agents. In 
every case, if the agents had been different, the reaction 
would have been different; it could not have been other 
than it was, given the nature of the interacting elements. 
Yet this argument, plausible as it is, conceals a petitio. 
For what does necessity mean ? It means, as we have said, 
deducibility. Now there is no possibility of deducing what a 
thing will do under novel conditions, because there is no law 
or principle from which the deduction can proceed. The law, 
as we have seen, is determined by the new reactions, not the 
reactions by the law; they create the law for similar situa- 
tions, they are not created by the law. And since there is no 
law, there is nothing to bind thought; there is nothing which 
compels us to think of what actually does happen as the sole 
possible reality. The action which results does grow out of 



154 THE SELF AND NATURE 

the situation, it is the work of the agents; it must therefore 
conform to their nature; but just how, when this con- 
formity means a modification, a recreation of their nature, 
is not logically determinable beforehand, and is not neces- 
sary. And the fact that when the situation is repeated the 
same reaction occurs does not prove the contrary; for, as we 
have shown, the necessity which then exists is post factum: 
the first reaction binds all other reactions. Just this is the 
fundamental mistake of the necessarian : to seek to explain 
an action by the very law which that action itself creates — 
surely that which establishes the law is not itself established 
by the law. 

The other argument which may be urged against this 
view is the following. Every proposition is either true or 
false ; it must therefore be possible to say of every conceiv- 
able event that it will or will not happen. Otherwise stated, 
some one definite description — itself, of course, a sheaf of 
propositions — must be true of the future. We may not, of 
course, know what this description is, yet it must neverthe- 
less exist. But whoever is in earnest about the reality of the 
flux will reject this argument. He will deny that proposi- 
tions about the future are either true or false; he will claim 
rather that their truth or falsity is something to be deter- 
mined, not something already determined. He will affirm, 
not that every such proposition is true or false, but that it 
will be either true or false. A proposition is either true or 
false either when there exists something real with which it 
conforms or does not conform, or when it can be deduced 
from other propositions which are true. Now since the future 



CAUSALITY 155 

does not exist, there is no reality which makes propositions 
about it either true or false by conformity or non-conform- 
ity, and the only deducible propositions are those which 
follow from laws, but these, so we claim, do not cover the 
whole field. Truth itself is a growth, like the real, of which 
it is the image. 

Moreover, every law, as a statement of future behaviour, 
is formal or abstract. For it presupposes the identity of the 
agent and the situations into which it enters. But neither 
the one nor the other is absolute. In so far as things enter 
into new situations, they are altered, and being different 
themselves, create new situations for other things. Not that 
these changes render the laws completely void: for, as we 
know, partial identity may exist despite differences. The 
general form or rhythm of the behaviour will be the same in 
the new case as in the old. One could predict, for example, 
the style of a Corot painting after the artist had developed 
his manner, but one could not give an exact description of 
any picture before it was executed, because each "inspira- 
tion" was unique. And this abstract or formal character of 
law does not render it " artificial," and of merely " practi- 
cal " significance, since the identity which it indicates is as 
metaphysically real as the differences which make complete 
description of the future impossible. Yet what does follow 
is this : there exists no concrete or complete truth about the 
future such as exists about the past and the present — there 
is nothing corresponding to history or observation — no 
genuine foresight or prevision. 



156 THE SELF AND NATURE 

The second theory is the one which we ourselves adopt, as 
being the most empirical, the most cautious, the freest from 
dogmatic assumption and appeal to the potential and undis- 
coverable. It is the one which is most in harmony with the 
adventure and originality of process, yet it provides a satis- 
factory basis for such inductions as we can actually carry 
out. 



CHAPTER VII 



SPACE 



IN order to complete our theory of the physical world, we 
must bring the simple metaphysical idea developed in 
our third chapter into relation with the scientific concepts of 
space, matter and force. Since, as we shall find, they are all 
interrelated, we shall have to study them together; yet we 
can take our start most conveniently with space. 

Although the scientific concept of space is very different 
from anything given in our more immediate and unreflective 
experience, it nevertheless has its roots there, which must be 
found if we would determine its metaphysical significance. 
Our sense experience comes to us as already spatial, as pos- 
sessed of extension and volume, with its elementary dif- 
ferentiations in an order. This is notably true of visual and 
tactual elements. Yet even sound and smell and taste are 
localized ; the first vaguely, the second and third in the nose 
and on the tongue, respectively. The group of organic sen- 
sations are placed inside of the body. The inner fife itself is 
not without its spatial characteristics. We locate our emo- 
tions and impulses where their executive and expressive 
organs are — rage in the fists and reaching in the arms, for 
example. Thought, memory and imagination are located in 
a vague way inside of our skulls. 

Yet examination of our seemingly naive spatial experience 
shows it not to be as innocent as may be supposed; it is, in 



158 THE SELF AND NATURE 

fact, full of reflection, of theory. For what, after all, do we 
seem to find in space ? Things. But things, as we know, are 
largely constructions — a syn thesis of sense elements and 
meanings. It is doubtful whether, apart from the attach- 
ment of meanings to our visual and tactual experiences and 
their demarcation into separate things, they would seem to 
be out there, before and behind, above and below. The per- 
ception of the third dimension depends largely upon the 
interpretation of visual sensations in terms of further pos- 
sible experiences, especially movement and touch experi- 
ences; mere light and color are not before and behind, but 
rather the tree and the house. Sounds and odors and tastes 
are localized through the sounding, odorous and sapid things 
with which they are connected. If our direct perception of 
space involves the conception of things, so necessarily do our 
thought and memory of space. It is the river, the tree, the 
town, the mountain that we think of when we think of the 
space outside and beyond that which lies within the given 
fields of touch and vision. Dissolve the crystallization of 
experience into things, and its spatial form vanishes into 
chaotic indistinctness. 

Not only does our common experience of space depend 
upon the thing, but our scientific concept as well. We can 
prove this by an analysis of the latter. The fundamental 
elements of the concept of space are position or point, dis- 
tance and order. These elements are mutually dependent, 
and all meaningless apart from the notion of the thing. 
Position always involves the relations between one thing 
and other things. The position of the earth is its distance 



SPACE 159 

from the sun and fixed stars, and, in turn, the position of the 
sun and fixed stars is their distance from the earth and other 
things. To be sure, we distinguish a position or point from a 
thing at a point, because various things, as we say, can 
occupy the same point at different moments of time. Yet 
this does not prove that a point could exist apart from some- 
thing at a point; that there are points in themselves. We 
distinguish, in similar fashion, kingship from the man who 
happens to be king — we distinguish the individual from his 
office, and we may even, if we are sentimental, look upon 
royalty as a quality handed down intact from one ruler to 
another, just as the crown and scepter are. Yet this does 
not prove that royalty would exist if there were no kings. 
Well, position is also an office, capable of occupation by 
various things at various times. A thing is at the same point 
that another thing occupied, when it bears the same relations 
to other things that the first thing bore. Everybody admits 
that we cannot recover an identical point, except in the sense 
of finding a thing in the same relations to other things taken 
as points of departure; but this admission is equivalent 
to the abandonment of the notion of the point-in-itself — 
a thing which cannot be found is nothing. Space could 
have an absolute existence only in the sense that all pos- 
sible relations, distances and orders were always filled, 
which would imply, of course, the continuous existence of 
elements in the relations in question — the existence of a 
plenum. 

That distance is meaningless apart from things follows 
immediately from the discussion of position. Distance is 



l6o THE SELF AND NATURE 

always from one point to another, from one thing to another. 
I can determine a distance only with reference to some start- 
ing point. The reversibility of distance, the fact that I can 
go the same distance either way, implies the possibility of 
returning to the starting point. But, as we have seen, to 
recover a point implies the recovering of a thing in the same 
relations to other given things, and I can determine that 
these relations are the same, only if I can recover the things 
which served as a frame of reference for my determination of 
positions. The reversibility of distance implies, then, the 
recoverability of things. The dependence of distance upon 
things has been emphasized from another point of view by 
Poincare. The measurement of all distances implies the in- 
variance of the unit of measure taken as standard, that is, 
the possibility of identifying it in a new experience as the 
same thing. 

The relativity of order to things is also plain. Spatial 
order is an order of points ; but, as we know, points do not 
exist apart from things ; order that is not the order of some- 
thing is a mere abstraction. Geometry treats of points as if 
they were existences, but only for the reason that by point 
the geometer means " some object standing in the relation- 
ships to be described." The reversibility of spatial order 
implies, like the reversibility of distance, the possibility of 
recovering things; after finding things in the order a, b, c, d, 
I must be able to find them again in the order d, c, b, a; or 
at least I must be able to rediscover those elements which I 
have taken as a frame of reference, from which new things in 
the order a, b, c, d can be determined. 



SPACE l6l 

The metaphysical interpretation of space depends, there- 
fore, upon the metaphysical interpretation of the thing. 
According to the results of our third chapter, the thing is a 
complex of sense elements conforming to a certain type and 
recurring in accordance with a certain law. And, according 
to the results of our chapter on cause, this lawfulness of the 
sense elements of the thing betokens the existence of a per- 
manent interest controlling and expressing itself in them. 
Moreover, although the sense elements in the mind of each 
individual are unique and different; yet, because they are of 
the same type and under control of the same influences, 
we think of them as one. With this interpretation of the 
thing as a premiss, it is not difficult to go on to the under- 
standing of space. Let us consider again the elements of 
space. 

What is a point ? If we survey the sense data of our per- 
ceptual experience we find separable wholes within which we 
can make discriminations, find parts. The smallest of these 
discriminations, the indivisible elements found, are points. 
A minimal sense element is a perceptual point, the totality 
of these is given space. Yet these, of course, are not all the 
points there are. By means of a movement or other process 
I can enlarge the extension of things, and so find new dis- 
criminable elements between those already found. That 
which seemed to be single gives place to a whole nest of items. 
But the ultimate discriminations are not real before I make 
them. When I use a microscope I help to create new sense 
data which were not there before. Why then do I take 
the fine discriminations to be more real than the gross ones ? 



1 62 THE SELF AND NATURE 

Why do I trust the microscope rather than the naked eye ? 
For much the same reason that we believe the touch thing 
to be more real than the visual thing. As sense data, of 
course, the gross and the fine points of discernment are 
equally real; yet we give the latter the preference, because 
by acting there we can effect more far-reaching results 
within experience. Our experience, as we know, is partly 
under our own control, partly under the control of influences 
which play through it unknown to ourselves. When I act at 
a point, that is, upon a certain fine element of my experi- 
ence, the result is partly determined by these foreign forces. 
To every fine element of my action there corresponds a pos- 
sible responsive influence in the environing experience. The 
more pervasive change which results from the finer action 
proceeds from a wider area of that experience. 

Strictly speaking, a point, as we have shown, is only an 
office; it has no reality apart from a thing at a point. The 
reality corresponding to the point is the physical thing or bit 
of a thing. The discriminable parts of the thing, rather than 
the points, are the constituents of the thing. These constitu- 
ents, as sense elements, have no reality beyond themselves, 
yet, as causally determined, they indicate surrounding in- 
fluences. To the multiplicity of the former there corresponds 
a complexity in the latter. Our experience is differentiated 
and deployed in response to the influences which play upon 
it. In so far as any bit of an object is recoverable, it gives 
evidence of an abiding force in the not-self which may be 
exerted again under proper conditions; it expresses a per- 
manent interest which can be reawakened. 



SPACE 163 

The dynamical reconstruction of a thing as a system of 
particles is the last step in the direction begun by the empiri- 
cal division of it into parts. Only here the reconstruction 
has left the perceptual for the purely conceptual level. The 
particles do not, of course, exist behind the perceptual con- 
tent ; they exist in front of it, so to speak, in the mind of the 
thinker. Yet they are not without metaphysical meaning. 
For they indicate, more accurately than the observable dif- 
ferences in the perceptual field, the multiple possibilities of 
response and control from the environment. The postulated 
infinity of points in space has a similar significance. Empiri- 
cally, there exists no such infinity in any perceptual extent. 
Yet if the scientific hypothesis is sound, there are an infinite 
number of possible responses which the environment can 
make to anything which exists in relation to it. 

Let us next consider order and distance. Although the 
spatial order of given sense elements is static, it represents a 
temporal order of possible experiences. To each of the ele- 
ments in the static order there is attached a meaning which 
refers to other elements with which it may be connected 
temporally. Spatial order is an anticipated temporal order. 
That which comes first in the one is first in the other; the 
near is now; the remote is late. Distance is anticipated dura- 
tion. To every extension there corresponds a movement 
experience which would realize the end-point. All distances 
are primarily read from the body, the aboriginal origin of all 
co-ordinates. The body forms a center about which all the 
points in space arrange themselves in concentric spheres. 
The lines which pass through the body to any point in these 



164 THE SELF AND NATURE 

spheres are temporal lines indicating successive future 
experiences. The infinite extent of space is the image of 
endless time — it is anticipated endless movement. 

The reversibility of spatial order and distance, contrasting 
with the irreversibility of time, does not invalidate the inter- 
pretation of space in terms of time. The reversibility of 
spatial relations involves, as we have seen, the possibility of 
finding anew similar sense elements. The irrecoverable does 
not exist for us in space. The hallucination or the dream — 
except in so far as we attach them to the brain — are not in 
space, because irrecoverable. An absolutely fluid experience, 
as Poincare has insisted, would not be spatial. In order to 
fix the network of relations, in order to set up the static 
framework for process, which is space, we must be able to 
establish relatively permanent points de repere. But the 
irreversibility of time is in no wise incompatible with this. 
The sequence a, b, c, d, c, b, a, as a sequence of concrete 
individual experiences following each other in time, is irre- 
versible, yet it contains as an abstract moment a reversible 
order of qualities of experience — this order is the spatial 
aspect of the whole. 

Yet order and distance are no more purely subjective and 
phenomenal than the point. To every point-particle in the 
material spatial order constructed by the scientist there 
corresponds, as we have seen, a controlling force in the 
environment. The remote thing is not only the future sen- 
sation group, but the force in the not-self which will control 
it in response to my movements and which, even now, is 
indirectly effective in my experience. In this way, space 



SPACE 165 

represents the cosmos, and not the mere future and possible 
experience of the individual. The sense experience of the 
individual is a part of a wider sense experience dominated by 
foreign forces. Now these forces differ in the temporal order 
of their action. Some act more immediately, some more 
remotely upon each other. In order for one to act upon 
another, it must elicit and secure the intermediate action of 
third parties. Distance and spatial order represent the tem- 
poral relations of interaction and co-operation of these forces. 
The near are those which act more immediately upon each 
other; the far require the intermediation of more forces. 
Other things being equal, the time of this interaction is in- 
versely related to what we call the distance between them. 
The near act more quickly upon each other than the far, 
because they are those which require the co-operation of 
fewer intermediaries. One force B is between two others A 
and C, when, in order for one of the two latter to influence 
the other, it must awaken and secure the co-operation of B. 
This involves, of course, a temporal series of interactions 
beginning with A and ending with C, and vice versa. Thus 
the spatial sequences or orders represent temporal ones. The 
metaphysical secret of space is, therefore, this: the cosmos 
consists of a multiplicity of active agents or forces. These 
agents can act only through the co-operation of each other. 
But the time necessary to secure this is unequal for different 
agents, and is linked up more immediately with some than 
with others. 

The foregoing account of space will become clearer if we 
apply it to the spatial relations of a man with his fellow men; 



1 66 THE SELF AND NATURE 

for, from our point of view, the relations between men are 
typical of all cosmic relations. The nearer we are, the more 
directly and quickly we can co-operate with and affect the 
lives of each other. When we are far from each other, on the 
other hand, we require more indirect methods of communi- 
cation and interaction, more agents and emissaries, and so a 
longer time. The differences of spatial location of our bodies 
means the fact that we never act directly and immediately 
upon each other, but always through the intermediation of 
other forces, and after the interval of time necessary for their 
action. We can affect each other only through the co-opera- 
tion of those forces which make up what we call the inorganic 
world. To be in the spatial neighborhood of another is to be 
in the temporal neighborhood of his actions, and to need, in 
order to influence him, the co-operation of a smaller part 
of the whole environment. 

And similarly with our spatial relations to what we call 
things, when those things are not present in our immediate 
experience. Just as you are far from me when it would take a 
long time for me to hear your voice and see your smile, and to 
change that voice to a higher key or make that smile into a 
laugh; so I in my room am far from the tree on the hill when 
much time would have to elapse for me to get the visual or 
tactual sensations which would be determined in me by the 
forces acting there, or for me to be able so to influence those 
forces by my own acts — such as cutting the tree down, for 
example — that the sensations would differ or disappear. 
Just as I locate your activities where you and I can interact 
most directly, so I locate what I call the tree at the point 



SPACE 167 

where I can most directly and immediately affect the forces 
which determine in my mind the corresponding sensations. 
I may get sensations from very remote things — I can, for 
example, see the sun — yet only through the intermediation 
of other things; and so I locate the thing where I can 
directly influence these sensations. The candle is where I 
can extinguish it; not here where I who receive its light am. 
And one thing is nearer to me than another when I can 
control the corresponding sensations of the one sooner 
than those of the other; the one lies between me and the 
other when the latter can affect me only by way of the 
former. 

We have space in common because we have things in com- 
mon, of which space is a law. Thus, to be in the same neigh- 
borhood with another means to be in touch with similar 
tree — road — house-sense elements. To be exactly in the 
same place with another would involve having identical 
sense experiences with him, which, of course, is impossible. 
From similarity of sense experiences we can infer identity of 
controlling influences, whence the similar sense elements in 
different minds are located in the same places. Just as I 
recognize you to be the same individual because you greet 
me with the same voice and bodily aspect, so I recognize an 
identical interest as playing through your life and mine when 
similar sense elements are found in each. The distances from 
one thing to another are the same for different people be- 
cause similar movement experiences are necessary in order 
to pass from one to another in a given time, and because the 
time-relations of the corresponding forces in their action 



1 68 THE SELF AND NATURE 

upon us are the same. The identity in the order of points 
means that in order to pass from one thing to another we 
have to go through similar determinate experiences; in 
other words, we have to be played upon by the same forces. 
The common spatial aspect of our experience represents the 
relations of time and co-operation of the common forces 
which control it, and our own movements in response to 
those forces. It is evidence of an interest in the repetition of 
a certain kind of sense element. There is, of course, never 
exact repetition, but that union of sameness and difference 
which is the sign of value. We can understand this duplica- 
tion if we keep in mind that the sense elements in the minds 
of various individuals bear a relation to the wider experience 
which includes them similar to that which parts of each per- 
sonal experience bear to the whole. Just as I find a value in 
the repetition of sense items within my own experience — 
think of rhythms, for example — so nature doubtless finds a 
value in the repetition of content in various minds. 

The theory which we have developed so far enables us to 
solve the problem of the location of mind. From our point 
of view, the mind is where it is controlled. Let us consider 
the location of the sense elements of mind, first. The exist- 
ence of any sense element depends upon the co-operation of 
forces which we locate, on the one hand, at the sense organ 
and, on the other hand, at the stimulus. As a rule, we have 
formed the habit of referring the sense element to the stimu- 
lus; but we can, with better right, refer it to the sense organ. 
Naive perception, being more interested in the stimulus, to 
which the organism must react, locates the sensation there; 



SPACE 169 

whereas the psychologist and physiologist, being more con- 
cerned with its bodily determination, locate it at the sense 
organ. If we keep in mind what is meant by localization we 
shall not find any contradiction in this duplicity. Spatial 
relations are, objectively, just relations of co-operation and 
differences in time of activity of controlling forces; hence a 
sense element is where it is controlled; and, being con- 
trolled by several forces, it has several places of location. 
Yet since the most immediate and direct control is by the 
forces which play through the sense organs, the man of 
science is ultimately right in locating it there. 

The activities, on the other hand, are "at" the sensory, 
motor and association areas of the brain; for their relations 
of co-operation and time of action are obviously to be estab- 
lished there. Differences of cerebral location correspond to 
differences in time of interaction among them. The brain 
is, in fact, just the system of these activities. 

Of the scientific concepts to be interpreted, we have 
covered, in the general way prescribed by our plan, space 
and matter. We have yet to consider motion, the study of 
which will lead to a somewhat more profound consideration 
of force than we have so far accorded to it. 

First of all, we must distinguish between the experience of 
motion and the scientific reconstruction. The former is, of 
course, a given reality; the latter is a conceptual interpre- 
tation, the reality meaning of which the philosopher has to 
find; and, in order to do this, he must, as in the study of 
space and all other concepts, proceed from the direct 
experience as a basis. 



I JO THE SELF AND NATURE 

In our direct experience, motions may be classified either 
as changes of our bodies in relation to things or else as 
changes of things in relation to our bodies. This is a relative 
distinction from the point of view of an outsider, but from the 
point of view of the agents it is absolute; for the former are 
initiated by the self, the latter by the not-self. The former 
involve changes in the movement sensations, the latter in 
sensations from the other fields. The movements of our 
bodies always express a purpose of adaptation or control, 
secured through a contact with new things, an influx of new 
sensations. We leave the neighborhood of certain things and 
get into the neighborhood of others. And this means, in 
terms of our metaphysical interpretation, that we come 
under the jurisdiction of forces more favorable to us. When 
things move relatively to us, the change in our relations to 
the environment is initiated there, rather than here. 

Empirical motions are total individual facts. They begin 
with a certain configuration of sense experience and end 
with a new one. We call this, ordinarily, movement from 
one place to another place ; but we must remember that the 
new place does not pre-exist to our movement. Every place 
is a certain configuration of sensation — there must always 
be a thing to mark it; but things are sensation groups which 
depend upon the body. The places which we pass through 
on our way are again other configurations, which are not 
real before our arrival. Every place is a transaction between 
us and the forces in the environment, and so does not pre- 
exist; pre-existent are only those agents which are aroused 
into action by our motions. 



SPACE 171 

The scientific account of motion is very different from all 
this. It presupposes the independent existence of both space 
and time, and conceives of motion as a correlation of the two 
effected by a particle. It breaks up the total empirical body 
moved into elementary particles, and the total motion into 
the motions of these. Now this is clearly a reconstruction of 
the empirical facts. We know that time has no existence 
independent of motion — that it is itself only a system of 
motions; that space is a system of things or of relations of 
time and co-operation of the forces which control things; 
and, finally, we know that particles are a reconstruction of 
empirical bodies for the purpose of altering and controlling 
them — they are prospective and pragmatic, not present 
realities. The entire reconstruction of motion is a descrip- 
tion of the potential, to use the Aristotelian terminology, of 
that which may become actual under certain conditions. 
The points to be passed over and the things which mark them 
become actual through motion ; and although it is possible for 
us or for nature to break up the total motion into simpler 
motions, the latter do not exist until this is done. The 
conceptual reconstruction has, however, metaphysical sig- 
nificance, in so far as it reveals a wider field of forces in 
the environment than those which appear immediately in 
the empirical motion. 

Motion is doubtless an accompaniment of all change. For 
every change is determined by some activity and involves 
new relations of co-operation and time of influencing other 
elements. Every change is an interaction, and so must 
involve such readjustments. The men of science are there- 



172 THE SELF AND NATURE 

fore right, it seems to me, in seeking to correlate all change 
with motion, from which, however, it does not follow that 
change can be reduced to motion. And one may even go 
further, I think, and assert that all activity involves motion; 
for every activity is directed upon and results in some 
change. 

We come now to the last of our group of concepts — that 
of force. The scientific concept of force, as it has been de- 
veloped recently, has reached a degree of abstraction remov- 
ing it far from the concrete experience from which it has 
arisen. Originally force meant cause. The idea was derived 
from our own causal activity in relation to the outer world, 
and implied, directly or remotely, activity. Since all causal 
activity involves motion, force came to mean, cause of 
motion, that is, activity governing motion. But, when it 
was seen that we have no intuition of the activities in nature, 
the connotation of activity, and indeed of cause, was 
dropped, and force came to be identified simply with the 
empirically ascertainable factors in the motion of bodies — 
with mass-accelerations. Both mass and acceleration are 
empirical concepts determinable by certain tests. They 
are both, to be sure, relative concepts, yet they clearly 
denote facts or qualities of things in their relations to one 
another. 

The purification of the concept of mass of all connotation 
of activity has been heralded by the so-called descriptive 
school of mechanics as a great advance; which is surely the 
case, from the standpoint of strictly empirical science. Yet, 
as we have shown in our chapter on Causality, it is impossible 



SPACE 173 

to dispense with activity in a final description of change, if, 
as science intends, the description is to be a means for the 
prediction of the future. From the metaphysical standpoint, 
all change is determined through activities, whence the 
notion of force, in order to be complete, must include that 
idea. And the popular scientific use of the concept — and 
even the learned use, unless strictly on its guard — contains 
this. 

The ordinary use of the concepts of gravitation, elec- 
tricity, magnetism, etc., illustrates this. They all signify 
something more than the purely observable elements of the 
phenomena — an admittedly unknown, yet clearly recog- 
nized fact of necessity or causal determination. And we, of 
course, in the present chapter, have used the concept of 
force with this richer connotation. 

The concept of force as mass-acceleration is, in fact, a 
highly specialized idea belonging to the science of mechanics. 
It can therefore be applied in nature only so far as nature is 
mechanical. When we recognize other forces in nature — 
chemical and vital — we call attention to activities which 
manifest themselves otherwise than in masses and accelera- 
tions. Let us now, however, consider force in this narrower 
and specialized sense. 

Since force is a product of mass and acceleration, we can 
discover its metaphysical meaning only through an analysis 
of these ideas. Let us consider acceleration first. What is 
acceleration ? Mathematically, it is the second derivative of 
space divided by time ; it is the limit of increase of velocity 
with reference to time. The concept arises through com- 



174 THE SELF AND NATURE 

parison of a series of changing velocities, apart from which 
it has no meaning. Acceleration, therefore, does not describe 
a state of a moving body, but a comparison of one state with 
another — a comparison of velocities; it therefore involves 
the history of a moving particle. From acceleration we are, 
consequently, driven back on velocity. But velocity itself, 
being rate of change of position, involves comparison — that 
between one motion and another. Unless, therefore, bodies 
have memory of their past acts, both velocity and accelera- 
tion exist only for us, not for them. This would not impugn 
their utility at all; for, in giving us knowledge of the history 
of things, they help us to predict the future. Apart therefore 
from the history of a thing, the analysis of its acceleration 
takes us back to its motion, as the only aspect which can be 
asserted of it as actual. But we have already studied the 
metaphysical significance of this. Yet velocity and accelera- 
tion are not without their own significance. For they indi- 
cate qualities of the activities governing motion — their 
ability to secure a rapid change of motions, together with 
the various novel contacts with sense elements which this 
involves. Acceleration and velocity are, after all, laws of 
a body's behaviour, and therefore indicate its plans and 
its ability to carry them out, with the co-operation of 
others. 

As for the mass of a body, it is, on the one hand, a quality 
which determines motions in other bodies and, on the other, 
enables it to resist such influences of other bodies as would 
make for change in its own motion. It is, on the one face, 
inertia or resistance, and on the other, power of determina- 



SPACE 175 

tion. Our own experience of mass contains these two aspects : 
the weight or mass of things is that in them which resists 
our efforts at moving them ; yet, on the other hand, our own 
ability to move them is a function of our own weight or 
mass. Mass, therefore, indicates power to influence other 
things and to resist influences — we can give no further 
metaphysical interpretation of it. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE AND THE 
METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 

IT cannot be my purpose in this treatise to construct a 
complete theory of knowledge ; but in this chapter I wish 
to indicate and defend the general epistemological point of 
view which I have adopted. 

What is knowledge ? All knowledge is mediated through 
ideas. Now an idea is an activity of the self with a unique 
power, representation — the vicarious presence to the mind 
of something else called its object. The idea offers itself as 
that other; whatever qualities it possesses are in mind not 
as its own, but as another's. For example, when I have an 
idea of the sea, I have a vague experience of color and exten- 
sion, with the sense that this is the sea. Oftentimes there is 
a seeming presence of an object without any clear experience 
of its qualities. Thus casually the idea of Paris may come 
into my mind when, if rapidly crowded out by other ideas, I 
may have only a vivid awareness of an object without any 
image of it. Yet originally every idea is at once the seeming 
presence of an object and also an experience of its qualities ; 
only through habituation and the lapse of time, or through 
rapid passage through the mind, does the latter become 
weakened, or even vanish. The more adequate an idea is, 
the more fully does it reveal the nature of the object, the 

176 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 1 77 

more complete is the image which it presents. There are, 
however, many stages between the 'mere seeming presence 
of an object and adequacy. For example, if you tell me that 
you are going to describe a person to me, I already have an 
idea of him before you begin ; there is a seeming presence of 
the man in the mind, although not a single characteristic of 
him has been told to me ; when now you go on and tell me 
what he is like, my idea becomes more adequate, because it 
supplies the qualities of the object to me; if you render my 
idea more definite by supporting it with a photograph, you 
increase its cognitive value still further; nevertheless, your 
own memory of the person's looks, especially if also strength- 
ened by the picture, is a far better idea than mine. 

That an idea can represent, can seem to bring before the 
mind something which is not itself, can be demonstrated by 
examining some actual cases and showing that any other 
interpretation of the facts leads to absurdities. 

First, memory. When I remember my friend of long ago it 
is as if he were present before me ; the sight of his face and 
figure, the sound of his voice, are as if they were there. My 
memory idea offers itself as a substitute for him ; and in its 
presence I feel again the same emotions that I felt when he 
was near. Yet, of course, my friend is not present ; he died 
long ago ; and, when I reflect, I recognize that my pale and 
shadowy memories are not the clear and definite face and 
form of the man I knew. I must grant, on the one hand, the 
ability of memory to simulate the past — else how could I 
know that there ever was a past at all ? and, on the other 
hand, I must admit that my memory is not the past, else 



178 THE SELF AND NATURE 

there would be no past — all things would be present, and 
the flux would be an illusion. 

Second, our ideas of our fellow men are a vicarious, not a 
real presence of them. As I watch my friend, see him laugh 
and move and hear him speak, it is as if his very thoughts 
and feelings and decisions were present in my mind; and, 
having it so, I think that I know his soul. Yet his inner life 
is not actually content of my soul, as my own is; for, when 
I reflect, I observe that what seemed to be this, when com- 
pared with my own inner life which I feel simultaneously, is 
relatively cool and pale; however vivid and poignant it be, 
as when I am in full sympathy with him or love him, it is 
nevertheless like an echo or shadow in comparison with my 
own. After all, it is only certain ideas of feelings and deci- 
sions and convictions, attached to his bodily expressions, 
which take the place in my mind of the corresponding real 
events in his. That this vicarious self of the man is not the 
man himself I know, not only by comparison with my own 
real self, but also because of the countless mistakes into 
which it leads me ... I so often discover that the feeling 
which seemed to be his was not present in him at all. 

Third, imagination is a clear case of meaning. As I watch 
the performers in the play, it is as if a real prince and prin- 
cess were walking and talking on the stage — no, not on the 
stage, but on an English greensward; yet we know that they 
were dead centuries past. And not the aesthetic only, but 
the most ordinary imaginings also, like sleep dreams and 
day dreams, are cases in point. Now in winter I am filled 
with the fancy that the sun is warm and that I float down a 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 1 79 

stream bordered with verdure. Of course, only images are 
in mind, but it is as if the real river and boat and foliage 
were present. 

All ordinary perception involves representation. When, 
for example, I see a house, only one side is given, of the rest 
only images are present; yet what I perceive is the whole 
house. This means that the images of the sides not seen are 
to me as if they were given sensations; they undertake to 
be what they are not; in fine, they represent. But the part 
played by representation in perception has been so fully 
treated by me in the chapter on that subject that I need not 
pursue it here. I may mention, however, the necessity for 
representation in order to explain errors of perception. 

Finally, the concept is a representative idea. Concepts are 
of two kinds, universal and individual. The universal con- 
cept means, that is, undertakes to bring into the mind vica- 
riously, any individual of a certain kind. Thus the concept 
" blue " is for me not some one blue thing, but any blue thing 
whatever. Unless, in this way, we were able to represent any 
individual, a large part of reasoning would be impossible — 
all that part which depends upon the use of variables and 
classes. And that the concept does not actually bring its 
object into the mind, but only represents it, is clear; for 
what we are able to perceive is always a definite individual, 
not any individual — a particular blue book, for example, 
not any blue book. Or again, the idea " blue " is an indi- 
vidual existence in the mind of the person who thinks blue 
books; but what it means is a universal; hence the idea 
must be able to represent more than it actually is itself. 



l8o THE SELF AND NATURE 

The individual concept proves equally the fact of repre- 
sentation. It means not any individual, but the individual 
of such a quality or description. " The blue book " refers 
not to any or all blue books, but to some particular blue 
book answering to the description. That I can use an 
individual concept without having its object as a part of my 
mind is clear from all those cases where I try to find some- 
thing to fit a description given me by another person; or 
when I infer by a process of reasoning to the existence of a 
thing incapable of direct verification. Thus, "the president 
of the United States " whom I look for in the crowd but do 
not see, or "the pineal gland in my brain," are examples of 
these ideas. There would be no sense in my looking if I had 
the president before my eyes, and clearly my own pineal 
gland could never become part of my consciousness. This 
type of knowledge is what Russell calls " knowledge by 
description." {Problems of Philosophy, Chapter 5.) It differs 
from memory in being independent of personal contact 
with the objects known. 

In the foregoing cases we have found abundant evidence 
of the existence of knowledge through ideas; but we have 
not proved that this is the only type of knowledge. Is there 
not a more immediate or direct way of knowing — by per- 
sonal contact or experience with things ? The distinction 
between knowing merely through descriptions, or even 
through memories, and knowing by actual living with things 
is often made by the common man as well as by the phi- 
losopher. The superiority of the latter type is matter of 
almost universal assertion; indeed, many feel that it is the 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS l8l 

only mode of knowing which really deserves to be called 
knowledge; the other being a mere substitute or makeshift 
for it. Yet I shall try to show that all knowledge involves 
ideas. 

First, however, let us ask how much we could know by 
this supposed other way of knowing. Plainly, only so much 
as could become content of the mind at a given moment. 
We could not know by direct experience the content of 
another's mind, or parts of physical things which we do not 
have under our eyes, or the past, even our own past; but we 
could thus know the immediate sense data, the given ele- 
ments of things perceived through the senses, and our own 
activities, with the images which are intertwined with them; 
for all these latter things can become parts of the mind. 
And to be part of the mind means, as I tried to prove in the 
first chapter, to be in contact with the self, with the activi- 
ties. We could know directly, or immediately, or by ac- 
quaintance with, that with which we come in contact; that 
which at a given moment we are grown together with, and 
form a unique whole with, called a mind. 

Recent thinkers, notably James and Perry, have made 
much of this type of knowledge and have emphasized the 
fact that it involves the entrance of the object known into 
the mind. Here there is no mere vicarious presence of the 
object through the idea; here the presence is " real " — the 
thing itself is an actual and genuine part of the mind which 
knows it. Yet the account which these thinkers give of the 
fact is unsatisfactory, because they have never given a satis- 
factory account of mind and of what is involved in the en- 



1 82 THE SELF AND NATURE 

trance of a thing into the mind. In chapter one I showed 
the insufficiency of their reduction of the relation of being 
in mind to the relation of being reacted to by the nervous 
system. Besides, direct knowledge involves the self or per- 
son, a factor not recognized by these philosophers. Without 
contact with the self, no mere grouping of sense elements 
could constitute a knowing of them; and no mere bodily 
reaction — a purely physical event — could make them into 
a mind; the elements would remain what they were before, 
parts of the physical world, with only another special rela- 
tion among them within that world. 

But not any and every contact of the self with things 
suffices to make a knowing of them; there must be a contact 
with a special part of the self — with ideas. The contact of 
my pleasure with blue, the impinging of my desire upon this 
sweet taste, does not of itself constitute a knowledge of blue 
or sweet. Knowledge of sense data exists only when they are 
recognized, classified or otherwise treated by ideas. The 
seeming noetic character of the other contacts is due to an 
accompanying contact with ideas. My pleasure in a thing, 
my desire for it, are simultaneous with some interpreta- 
tion of it through ideas. The bare presence of an element in 
the mind seems to involve knowledge because it is impos- 
sible to suppress recognition. Even the novel and surprising 
are not utterly uninterpreted — they fit into some system of 
ideas, even if a large and vague one. Mere life with things, 
mere action of desire or pleasure upon them, is not a knowl- 
edge of them. The peculiarity of knowledge by acquaint- 
ance does not consist in an absence of ideas, but rather in a 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 1 83 

contact of ideas with what they mean. It is this which 
gives to this type of knowledge its poignancy, its fullness. In 
all other types of knowledge, as we have shown, contact is 
absent. 

Another reason why the mere contact of the self with a 
thing may be thought to involve knowledge is because the 
relation which exists between pleasure or desire and their 
objects is analogous to the relation between the idea and 
its object. The touch of any one of these activities with its 
object involves a true subject-object relation; there is a 
direction of one upon the other, of the self upon the thing; 
or a coming of one to the other, of the thing to the self; just 
as in the application of ideas, the idea means the sense datum 
and the datum fits into the idea. Finally, there is still 
another reason why ideas are supposed not to function in 
immediate knowledge — the large difficulty of rinding them 
there in certain cases. Originally, every idea, as already 
explained, is an image; but this is often attenuated to 
such an extent that no easily recognizable image remains. 
In recognition especially, in the daily contact with familiar 
things, the image tends to be supplanted by a feeling. Even 
if, as when we look for a thing, a clear image has preceded, 
the contact with the thing when we find it dissipates the 
image. Yet the idea remains — the thing comes to us as 
fitting into something, as fulfilling a function or activity; 
there is a shock, a contact, an interaction with some- 
thing which is neither feeling nor volition. There is a 
going out of the self to meet and greet and appropriate. 
Even when there is neither the clear presence of an image 



1 84 THE SELF AND NATURE 

nor any application of a name, the duality, the transaction 
exists. 

It is no part of our problem to enter into the psychology 
of meaning, of the unique power of ideas to seem to bring 
to the mind another than themselves; yet a consideration 
of it will help us to a closer understanding of knowledge. 
There are several theories of meaning which will repay 
examination. 

First, there is the theory of meaning as due to a process of 
accretion of sensations and images around a given bit of 
content — this forward and developing movement and 
enrichment corresponding to that sense of more, of full 
reality, which is the distinctive character of representative 
ideas. Thus, the meaning of a memory idea would be 
equated to the continual coming in of new and richer mem- 
ories, a process which always occurs when one recalls a past 
thing or situation. In other words, the meaning of an image 
is reduced to the process of enriching the image by means of 
other images. Well, it is of course true that an idea, fre- 
quently if not always, does give rise to a chain of associated 
ideas, whereby it becomes more precise and adequate — one 
idea leads on to a whole cluster of related ideas. Yet it is 
impossible to reduce the meaning of an idea to the chain of 
associated ideas, or to the linking of one element in the chain 
to another; for the first idea that arises already has mean- 
ing. An idea has meaning ab initio, before any idea is as- 
sociated to it. The idea approaches adequacy through 
association, but its original quality as meaning cannot be 
thus explained. 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 185 

According to another theory, meaning is simultaneous 
rather than successive context. One sensation or image can- 
not make a meaning, but two can, it is asserted, when one is 
the meaning of the other. For example, that the side of 
the house that I see means the whole house is due to the 
fact that it exists for me in a context of images of the rest of 
the house, these images, it is claimed, being psychologically 
equivalent to the house. It is not the transition from one 
image to another which makes a meaning, as according to 
the previous explanation, but the fact that one image or 
sensation is next to another. The objection to this theory, 
however, is precisely the same as the objection to the last: 
the image or other mental content which forms the context 
of the central one itself has meaning, as is the case with the 
image of the other side of the house in our illustration. If 
the meaning of the sensation is explained through associated 
images, how explain that of the images ? With reference to 
the sensation ? But surely this would not serve; for the 
meaning of the images is quite different from the content 
given in sensation, namely, just that which is not given. It 
is of course true that a sensation has meaning only when 
there is an associated image; for sensations cannot, of 
themselves, mean anything; they are physical objects, not 
mental activities; they simply are what they are ; they can- 
not also know. But how explain the meaning of the images ? 
We come back again to the old problem. It will not help to 
appeal to contextual images in the fringe; for these very 
images also have meaning; how then could you explain their 
meaning ? 



1 86 THE SELF AND NATURE 

The last resort is to attitude, kinaesthetic and affectional. 
A content has meaning when there is attached to it the same 
reactions or set of body, or the same mood or desire or other 
activity, as the object meant would awaken, if itself present. 
Thus, according to this type of theory, the image of my 
friend has meaning because I feel towards it just as I should 
toward my friend, were he here. And the advantage of 
this explanation is that it seems to cover the cases where 
mental content has meaning without the clear presence of an 
image. For example, the picture of my absent friend has 
meaning; yet no explicit image of him arises when I look at 
it. And the verbal idea " Carl " has for me the same mean- 
ing, although again I cannot always discover in it an explicit 
image of my friend. What makes the difference between the 
word " Carl," which has meaning for me who have known the 
man, and the same word which has no meaning for you who 
have not seen him? Is it not that, in my case, the word is 
associated with numerous activities which are recalled when 
I say it or hear it ? The noetic quality of immediate experi- 
ence would be explained in the same way; recognition would 
be the reawakening of old activities. We can express this 
theory briefly as follows: the meaning of a mental content is 
the value of the object which it represents. One thing means 
the same as another, substitutes itself for another, or pre- 
sents it vicariously, when it acquires the value of the other. 
Whatever I act and feel the same towards means the same. 

Yet, despite its seeming plausibility, this last theory puts 
the cart before the horse. An idea has the value of its object 
because it represents; it does not represent the object 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 1 87 

because it has an equivalent worth. It is impossible that a 
value should give a presentiment of an object. The image, 
the picture, the word could not have for me the value of the 
original did they not somehow offer me vicarious sight of the 
object, which the phenomena of mood and reaction cannot 
do. The arousal of an old desire or feeling cannot give a 
vision of an object. Every idea, in substituting itself for its 
object, reawakens the attitude appropriate to it, and so 
possesses a kindred value; but this does not imply the iden- 
tity of the idea and value. A reawakened activity would of 
itself be blind and objectless. 

We must, therefore, admit the uniqueness of meaning; yet 
we can, I think, understand its genesis as follows. The 
functioning of the body in contact with things is not a 
momentary event without issue to the parties to the trans- 
action. The thing is transformed in divers ways in which we 
are not here interested; the body is moulded to fit the thing. 
This mould or adjustment persists in the absence of the 
object; it has a double inner side: on the one hand, a tend- 
ency to return to the object or keep away from it, accord- 
ing as contact with it was pleasant or unpleasant — desire 
or aversion; on the other hand, an image of the thing — an 
idea of it. Just as desire and aversion are echoes of the reac- 
tions of the self to the thing, so the idea is an echo of the 
thing itself. Again, just as every activity is kept in the form 
of an indelible tendency to its repetition, so every contact 
with an object persists in the form of a picture of it. The 
self not only simulates its own activities, positively or 
negatively; it also simulates the objects of those activities. 



1 88 THE SELF AND NATURE 

And finally, just as desire and aversion contain something 
of the pleasure or pain of the original activity, yet cannot 
possess their complete value; so the idea represents, but 
does not present, its object. Originally, the image is an ele- 
ment in a plan of return or avoidance; it has a practical 
function of guidance. If, however, the organism is unable to 
return to the thing which gave it pleasure, the idea still per- 
sists as a memory, and the longing or fear that were attached 
to it are transformed into a merely contemplative sweetness 
or bitterness. Thus the image is born of a contact of the self 
with a thing, and has meaning only because of this contact. 
Not only is the sense world mirrored in the idea; but 
the self also can be thus reflected. The activities within 
the body leave their traces there; and so ideas of the 
self arise. And just as our ideas of the sense world are 
originally plans to bring us back to contact with it and 
action upon it; so our ideas of self are similarly designs 
to act again as we acted before. But these designs may 
fail, when the idea becomes a mere memory of past deeds. 
Or else the elements of ideas of past acts may be com- 
bined into a new structure, an intention to novel action; a 
new tendency projects an image of a new act. If the deed 
is carried out, the idea was a foreknowledge of the future; 
if, on the other hand, the deed be frustrated through ob- 
stacles in the sense world, or if, because of counter tend- 
encies, no attempt be made to carry it through, it was a 
dream, an imagined happiness. Finally, the observed ac- 
tions of the bodies of our fellows also arouse ideas of the self. 
But these, since they come from without rather than from 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 1 89 

within, are referred away to their external causes; they 
are located in the fellow man's body; they constitute a 
knowledge of his inner life, not of ours. 

This knowledge of our fellow men is much like a dream. 
Like a dream, the elements of the ideas which constitute it 
are reflections of activities which we ourselves once carried 
out or might carry out. We understand the acts of our fel- 
lows only on the basis of what we have done or longed to do. 
And just as in a dream the elements of past deeds are com- 
bined to make a new structure; so, through the sight of 
total acts which we ourselves never performed in their 
wholeness, we get ideas of desires and feelings which we our- 
selves never knew. But the idea of the fellow man differs 
from the dream in two ways. Unlike the dream, it is con- 
nected with a sensible presence which gives to it a superior 
feeling of reality; and, unlike the dream, it happens to 
correspond to a reality; it is true, at least partially. Yet, 
in large measure, of course, our boasted knowledge of our 
fellow men is a dream. Should we waken, what a disillusion ! 
We see the laughter and the motion; the lips move and 
the eyes smile and the limbs sway; ideas of gladness and 
abandon arise in our minds. Yet we never can verify them, 
because we never can make the represented life our own; so 
perhaps what seemed to be joy in the dancer was only an 
echo of our own joy of observation. Unconsciously we sub- 
stitute for the ideas which, ingenuously aroused, would give 
us knowledge of the inner life of our fellow men our own 
reactions to their expressive movements and our precon- 
ceived notions of how they ought to feel. And so the fellow 



190 THE SELF AND NATURE 

man becomes a mere alter ego, a reflection of ourselves, and 
we keep ourselves in a dream. 

Ideas are, in the first instance, the images of individual 
things in the environment. All other types of ideas, imag- 
ination and the concept, are derivatives. It may happen, 
through some process within the organism, that several 
simple ideas are combined into one idea, to which nothing 
as a whole in the real world corresponds. The idea will 
still seem to bring an object before the mind, will still 
have meaning, because each of its elements was born out 
of a contact with a real thing; but it will be fancy and not 
memory, because its total object has never been a real 
part of the world. Now the concept is also a derivative 
of images born of a contact with real things. Through 
constant contact with things, the several images of them 
become overlaid one with another, so that no single clear 
picture stands forth; this mass, when associated to a word 
or other sign, is a concept. The concept is no mere word, 
because it has a meaning; nor is it a mere tendency to 
react when the word is uttered, for it offers a vision of the 
object — not so simple as the single image, yet richer in that 
it refers to a whole group of objects. The concept may be of 
simple sense qualities, like blue; or of simple relations, like 
greater than ; or of complexities of these, like chair or me- 
chanical system ; in all cases, it is a resultant born of contact 
with many individual things, born of many immediate blue-, 
chair-, quantity-experiences. The concept is a condensation 
of images, and hence the quintessence of one's experiences 
with the corresponding objects. It is, however, something 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 191 

more — the construction of the idea of a new object — a 
universal. The result of this process of elimination and 
synthesis is a new formation, which henceforth may take the 
place of the group of individual objects through which it was 
constructed. The universal has meaning, like the elementary 
images out of which it was formed ; but what it means is no 
one of the objects which they meant, but something sui 
generis, unique. 

The above account of the formation of universal ideas 
does not pretend to adequacy. We have neglected, for the 
sake of simplicity of presentation, the social factors in the 
construction. The individual does not construct these ideas 
by himself; he learns them, very largely, from others through 
the process of education. And he receives them fully con- 
structed, with all their parts and properties determined. 
For him to alter them to suit his caprices is possible; but 
that would only be to construct new ideas meaning other 
objects; there would still be the original ideas for him to 
know and use. For example, a meaning like triangle is not 
the personal property of any one mind. When I apprehend 
a triangle it comes to me possessed of properties as rigidly its 
own, as undocile to my will, as a stone or a star. I accept it 
as just itself, much as I accept a physical thing. The mathe- 
matician is in the same position of learner of its properties as 
the metallurgist is towards those of crystals. Or consider 
a law like that of falling bodies; when I learn it I do not 
invent it; I observe it; I find out its properties and try to 
view them in their application. Or consider practical con- 
cepts, such as liberty or socialism, which have been formed 



192 THE SELF AND NATURE 

by so long a process that when the individual reads of them 
or has them explained to him, he receives them as given 
things, not as products or inventions. The same attitude 
holds towards concepts which are applied to individual 
things, towards singular propositions or truths. When, for 
example, I study history I apprehend a description of the 
past which I do not invent, but accept and recognize as 
having validity quite independent of my wish or will. 

At various points in our discussions we have come upon 
these conceptual or ideal objects : in our chapter on percep- 
tion, the types through which we interpret the sense world; 
in our discussion of causality, laws; in our discussion of 
time, the complex of propositions which make up history. 
These ideal objects make up a large and important part of 
our experience, and to any one engaged in the pursuit of 
science, or in the carrying out of a plan or a cause, they are 
as real as the sun or moon. But obviously they are not real 
in the same fashion that sun and moon are real. 

And yet, in recent times, by Russell and Moore and their 
school, the old platonic theory of the reality of universals 
has been revived. It is the theory that these ideal objects 
possess reality independent at once of minds and of nature. 
"There is nothing," says Plato, ". . . so patent as that good- 
ness, beauty and other notions . . . have a most real and 
absolute existence." (Phaedo, 77.) 

If this theory were true it would involve so large and 
extensive a change in our view of the world that we cannot 
pass it by without weighing its merits carefully. The theory 
is based, primarily I think, on an uncritical acceptance of 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 1 93 

the realistic attitude towards concepts, which, because con- 
cepts are of social origin, is so natural, as we have seen. 
But the theory does not rest on this basis alone. It is sup- 
ported by a line of reasoning of a negative sort: the impos- 
sibility of reducing ideal objects to psychological or physical 
facts. The argument against the mental character of uni- 
versal has been put simply and clearly by Russell, as 
follows: " We can think of a universal and our thinking 
then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other 
mental act. Suppose, for example, we are thinking of white- 
ness. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is in 
our mind ... In the strict sense it is not whiteness that is in 
our mind, but the act of thinking whiteness ... In one sense 
of the word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object 
of an act of thought, whiteness is an ' idea.' Hence if the 
ambiguity is not guarded against we may come to think that 
whiteness is an idea in the other sense, i. e., an act of 
thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is 
mental. But in so thinking we rob it of its essential quality 
of universality. One man's act of thought is necessarily a 
different thing from another man's; one man's act of 
thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from 
another man's act of thought at another time. Hence if 
whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two 
different men could think of it, and no one man could think 
of it twice. That which many different thoughts of white- 
ness have in common is their object, and this object is dif- 
ferent from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, 
though when known they are objects of thoughts." {The 



194 THE SELF AND NATURE 

Problems of Philosophy, pages 154, 155.) The plurality and 
temporal character of mental acts seems to be inconsistent 
with the unity and independence of time of universals. 

This argument is from one point of view cogent enough, 
but it does not prove what Russell supposes. It shows — 
and the same thing could be done in many other ways — 
that a universal, as the object of a meaning, is not a mental 
act; that when, for example, I think of whiteness I do not 
think of any one's thought of whiteness, any more than I 
think of the concrete quale of a flag or of snow. I certainly 
do not think of my own thought, or of any one else's, or of 
the totality of thoughts of this kind. What I think of — the 
intent of my thought — is one, not many; a universal, 
not a particular. Husserl, in his Logische U titer suchungen, 
has shown, beyond any possibility of doubt, the unique- 
ness of the universal. Yet this does not prove that uni- 
versals exist independent of the mind. It proves only that 
the mind is capable of thinking of things which are no part 
of the mind or of the physical world. And universals are 
not the only cases of this. Fairy lore contains a whole world 
of individuals which are certainly not real. They are, of 
course, real as somebody's thoughts; but not real as men are 
real, on their own account, independent of other people's 
thoughts. The most convincing example of the power of the 
mind to think objects which are non-existent is memory. 
Now memory is, eo ipso, knowledge of the non-existent. 
When I remember I certainly do not remember my memory 
— just as when I think of a universal I do not think of the 
particular mental act through which it is apprehended. But 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 195 

surely the object of my thought is non-existent. All of 
Russell's arguments seem to me to involve this confusion of 
mistaking a proof that the object of thought is not a thought 
for a proof that its object exists. When I think of my grand- 
father my thought and its object are certainly not one ; yet 
surely this cannot be taken for an argument for the existence 
of my grandfather. If so, just to think of it, would suffice to 
make anything exist. 

Yet such arguments are entirely negative in their scope ; 
they show that no sufficient evidence has been adduced to 
prove the existence of universals; they do not prove that 
universals do not exist. The usual method of doing this is to 
start from some dogmatic idea of what existence involves — 
to exist is to be concrete, to be perceived, to be a self, and so 
on. But whatever basis these assertions may have, they do 
not seem to me to be likely to weigh, without more argument 
than is usually adduced in their favor, with any one who 
thinks he has an equally luminous intuition of the existence 
of universals. The only way to prove that universals do not 
exist independently is to show that they are created by the 
mind — to exhibit the process of their formation. We must 
be able to show that they are of the same type as fictions, with 
as much and no more reality. And precisely this I claim can 
be done. For I have shown that, although general ideas are 
made of other ideas which mean real things, and grow up only 
through the existence and co-operation of real things, they 
themselves are constructed by an internal process of indi- 
vidual and social invention, without the co-operation of an 
object. If it could be shown that for the making of universal 



196 THE SELF AND NATURE 

ideas some causal co-operation of their objects was necessary, 
then it could be proved that the latter exist; but since this 
cannot be done, and another method of their formation has 
been exhibited, the assumption of existence is gratuitous. 

There is, however, another argument for the existence of 
universals, drawn from their validity or truth. Because of 
their truth, universals may seem to have an objectivity 
which entitles them to correspondence with reality. But 
it can be shown, I think, that the truth of universals, like 
universals themselves, is derivative. 

For truth, like its opposite, falsity, is primarily a quality 
of ideas in their application to objects — a quality of judg- 
ments. The object of an idea is not true, but only the idea in 
relation to its object. This, I repeat, is the primary meaning 
of truth; but upon it as a basis is built another meaning. 
The true judgments of various people form a class, and so 
offer the material for the construction of a universal, which 
may now be called "the truth" corresponding. But the 
truth of this truth, if one may so express it, is dependent 
upon the truth of the judgments of which it is the corre- 
sponding universal. The idea of such a truth is constructed 
post factum, after the existence of particular true judgments, 
and gets its quality as truth from them. This, however, is 
not recognized by the Platonists, who think that a true 
judgment is an apprehension of a truth, thus putting the 
matter exactly the other way round. But an attentive 
examination of the matter reveals that a judgment is not 
directed towards a truth, but towards a thing or situation. 
Every judgment is the construction of a description which 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 1 97 

takes the place of the object in the mind, that is to say, pre- 
sents it there vicariously. Subsequently, of course, one may 
reflect upon the situation, recognize that the judgment is 
true, and, seeing that other people's judgments are also 
true, form the idea of an object which shall correspond to all 
these judgments, in other words, think the universal corre- 
sponding. Now in the social process of exchange of ideas and 
research, for the purpose of giving unity of direction to the 
thoughts of many minds, only more instinctively than I 
have described it, this is exactly what is done. But, how- 
ever useful, it is obviously a highly derivative process, 
resting upon the employment of ideas in their directly 
descriptive function. 1 

But what does constitute the truth of an idea ? The 
simplest conception is that of resemblance, the idea is true 
of its object if it can mirror it in the mind, and so become a 
substitute for it. In recent times, however, this conception 
has been subject to attack from many quarters. Royce, for 
example, declares that mere resemblance does not suffice to 
make one of two things a knowing of the other {The World 
and the Individual, Vol. I, Chapter 7). Two things, two 
copies of the same book, for example, may be very closely 
alike, even indistinguishable to ordinary perception, yet the 
one does not for that reason know the other. But this criti- 
cism overlooks, I think, the unique character of ideas. 
Under no circumstances, of course, can a mere thing know 

1 This account of truth as a universal contains, of course, a criticism, 
by implication, of the theory of truth as a quality of independently exist- 
ing propositions, once advocated by Russell and his school, and ably dis- 
cussed by Joachim in The Nature of Truth. 



198 THE SELF AND NATURE 

anything; only ideas can know. Again, it is asked how the 
truth of ideas can depend upon resemblance when, often- 
times, their objects do not exist for comparison with them, 
as is the case when the objects are destroyed, or for some 
other reason cannot be recovered. And it is indeed true that 
when, for example, I have an idea of my childhood there are 
not two things in mind — the idea and my childhood; there 
is only one, the idea. There is not even a separate self or 
activity which employs the idea as a representative; the 
activity is immanent in the idea itself; the idea is the I who 
know. As Spinoza says, "Ideas are not lifeless like pictures 
on a panel. " Nevertheless, when we reflect, we become aware 
that if the idea is true, it would resemble its object, could 
we only confront the two, and the actual process of verifica- 
tion, when the objects of ideas exist, consists in confronting 
them with their objects and comparing them. Whenever, for 
example, we identify sense objects we establish a resemblance 
between them and our descriptive ideas. We cannot, of 
course, identify the past, but, by making use of memories, 
documents and monuments, we can construct a mental 
image of it. We demand of our ideas — or better, our ideas 
demand of themselves — not only that they bring their ob- 
jects vicariously into our presence; but, in addition, that 
they provide us with a revelation or intuition of them, 
which they can do only so far as they would resemble them, 
if confronted with them. 

Another point which Royce makes against the notion of 
resemblance as an element in the truth of ideas is its ab- 
stractness. An idea, like every other thing, necessarily 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 1 99 

resembles many similar objects; how then, on the basis of 
resemblance, can I claim it to be true of some determinate 
one of them ? How can I claim that it has a unique object 
at all ? Now this might be a valid objection to a monadistic 
theory of knowledge and reality, according to which ideas 
grow up by an inner and spontaneous process in a mind cut 
off from the world which it is seeking to know, but it can 
carry no weight against our view. For, as I have explained, 
ideas are born out of a contact of the mind with things. 
Knowledge is born and made, as other products are, out of 
the stress and strain of the world process. The unique object 
which the idea means is the unique thing which has con- 
spired in its genesis, and back to which we can trace its 
history. 

A final objection to the image doctrine of truth is based on 
the fact that a large part of our knowledge consists of con- 
cepts which appear not to be images in any sense. In what 
sense for example, it might be asked, is the truth that the 
earth is so many millions of miles distant from the sun an 
image of anything ? Or the truth that the earth has a weight 
of so many million tons ? For a great many people, concepts 
have little or no image value at all; yet they make up the 
substance of their knowledge. 

Now it must be admitted, of course, that concepts do not 
always provide people with visual images of objects. But 
this is no proof of their totally non-imitative character. 
Things are given to us not only visible, but sounding and 
odorous and kinaesthetic as well; hence an image in terms 
of any one of these sense qualities is as genuine as a visual 



200 THE SELF AND NATURE 

image. Moreover, concepts are largely symbolic and abbre- 
viative. The distance from here to the sun is such a concept; 
but its meaning consists of the concrete images of measuring 
of which it is the equivalent. Apart from the experience and 
memory of using a foot rule and superimposing it upon 
some visible or tangible length, apart from some experience 
of counting, no one could in any sense understand this dis- 
tance. Many concepts, to be sure, are not images of existing 
things but, as seems to be the case with chemical formulae, 
of actions to be performed, such as weighing, measuring and 
heating, and the expected sensations resulting. They are 
images of future, rather than of present objects. The use of 
symbolic concepts has been forced upon us because we have 
not a sufficient range of imagination to encompass the com- 
plexity of the world of the object, and for the sake of mental 
economy. Yet, I reiterate, apart from possible images and 
experimental tests, such concepts have absolutely no mean- 
ing at all. Their truth depends upon the process of verifica- 
tion; and this is always, in terms of things and processes 
within experience, capable of being imaged. 

Because of the highly symbolic and non-pictorial char- 
acter of many of our concepts, James was led to interpret 
truth as the capacity of an idea to lead back to the object 
which it means. Now this capacity of return is indeed a fact 
about certain of our ideas. All ideas capable of identification 
through confrontation with their objects, such as ideas of 
things in the sense world, are of this order. Ideas of past 
objects and ideas of our fellow men, which are not capable of 
this leading, can nevertheless be brought into contact with 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 201 

what James calls their " next effects." We can bring our 
ideas of our fellow men into contact with the deeds and ex- 
pressions of their bodies; we can confront our ideas of past 
events or objects with their records or remains. We can thus 
trace ideas along the paths leading to their sources. Yet 
that the return of the idea to its source cannot take the 
place of representation becomes clear when we ask ourselves 
how we recognize the object to which we return. If we had 
no image, no marks of recognition in our minds, how could 
we greet it as the thing which we meant when we find it ? 
All verification presupposes some element of representation. 
The idea must have first imaged the thing in order for the 
process of identification to find it to be true. 

A final proposed substitute for representation is consist- 
ency. But consistency is only a formal character of judg- 
ments in relation to one another, and does not determine the 
truth of any one of them. Every new judgment must be 
brought into harmony with the system of old, well-estab- 
lished judgments, but the ultimate truth of the system itself 
rests upon its correspondence with the facts. We cannot 
accept contradictory reports of eye witnesses; but neither 
can we believe a story merely because it is consistent; we 
require a further criterion still — that the story shall mirror 
the events, and so be capable of verification in them or in 
" their next effects." 

Royce's own theory of truth depends upon the assimila- 
tion of meaning to will. The meaning of an idea, we are 
told, is the will of the idea. I am far from objecting to this 
definition provided only that the truth which it expresses be 



202 THE SELF AND NATURE 

clearly understood. The old-fashioned notion of the genesis 
of the idea, which recent theory has done so much to dissi- 
pate, supposed it to be produced in the mind by a purely 
mechanical process of registering. But just as every contact 
with an object not only brings it into the circle of the mind 
but, in addition, involves a reaction of feeling and will, so 
every idea when maintained there becomes the center of 
some affective process. Originally, sun and moon, star and 
earth were objects of passionate interest, and even the 
dulling process of familiarization does not succeed in cooling 
all the warmth of things. And this is true, to an even higher 
degree, of ideas. Ideas have a passionate birth, and some 
longing or fear keeps them alive in the mind. They have, 
moreover, a practical function of guidance or avoidance 
indefeasible. Yet in asserting all this we do not thereby 
deny the uniqueness of the representative function. No 
feeling apart from idea affords any knowledge of its object. 
What the idea wants to do is above all to represent, to image. 
This desire of the idea is reinforced by the vicarious presence 
of a delightful object; but even an aversion to its object can- 
not utterly quench it. Consider, for example, how we take 
bad news. We struggle against it with all our might — it 
cannot be true, we passionately cry. And yet — there is the 
idea; it persists; it maintains itself; it wills to remain. And 
this means that ideas have a will of their own and that in 
proportion to the liberality of our minds we accept this will 
as supreme in its own domain. We have no will of which the 
will of the idea is not an integral part; hence we cannot 
stand outside and coerce it. I do not deny the influence of 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 203 

desire upon belief; but I do assert that this occurs only- 
through interference with belief's natural course. The 
proper will of the idea is to be an image, whether the image is 
acceptable or not; and its fulfillment may involve the dis- 
appointment of every other desire. 

It is easy to understand the confusion of meaning and will. 
Every developed desire is connected with a meaning which 
represents its object, and leads to an action tending to the 
rilling out of the idea in an experience which brings us back 
to the object which gave us pleasure. Well, similarly, every 
idea wills return to the object which it represents, longs for 
a renewal of contact with the thing out of which it was born, 
and through which it can keep its assurance. Every idea 
tends toward verification; it cannot rest until it has been 
tracked back to the reality from which it sprang. Thus the 
going forward of desire to satisfaction and the going back of 
the will of the idea to assurance are similar processes, and 
become coincident whenever desire is for contact with an 
object of which we have the idea. The satisfaction of the will 
of the idea in verification is simultaneous with the satisfac- 
tion of the special interest which we have in the object. And 
so the confusion of the will of the idea with the will in general 
can be easily understood. 

A similar misunderstanding besets the theory of judg- 
ment as the acceptance or rejection of ideas; these acts 
being interpreted as functions of the will. 1 For, in the first 
place, there is often no such activity alongside of ideas; the 
mere presence of the idea in the mind constitutes belief; the 

1 Compare Rickert: Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis. 



204 THE SELF AND NATURE 

idea does not have to be independently accepted ; it carries 
its own welcome with it. Unless we are roused to doubt, 
belief comes of itself unsought. In reading history, or in 
receiving news or gossip from his friends, the average person 
believes whatever ideas are given to him, because they are 
given to him. Only when some active curiosity exists, some 
burning desire for the truth, is an idea which fits into the 
system of constituted beliefs, and so advances the truth, 
welcomed as a boon ; or if it fails to fit, rejected as something 
undesirable. To be sure, since the course of ideas is some- 
what under the control of special interests, it is possible to 
influence belief by excluding unwelcome ideas; yet there are 
limits to this. The verified idea cannot be disbelieved. No 
one can see the sun at midday and doubt that light sensa- 
tions exist; no one can doubt the existence of his friends. 
Such instances may seem to be unfair on the ground that 
they are extreme; but the ultimate grounds of all belief are 
simple and irresistible. And, of course, the less the special 
desires control our ideas and the more the will of ideas has 
its own way, the truer they will be. The love of truth is the 
only honorable will to believe. And this consists in letting 
the process of verification and belief follow its own laws, free 
of the behests of desire. Every belief may bring an addi- 
tional welcome when it announces the satisfaction of a 
love; but belief leads, welcome follows. On the other hand, 
the satisfaction of the interest in truth may be accom- 
panied by the disappointment of all other desires. 

There remains for consideration in this chapter one final 
topic — the value of knowledge. We may put the problem 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 205 

thus — what is the value of an idea when what we want is 
reality ? Life — the direct contact of the self with things, 
the play of the activities with the world, this is what we 
want. In comparison with this, the possession of ideas seems 
a feeble affair, a mere makeshift. Who cares aught for the 
idea of a rose who has roses in his garden, or for the idea of 
love who has a sweetheart ? And this criticism is not one 
which is passed externally upon knowledge, as by an out- 
sider; it is a judgment which the idea passes upon itself. 
For the idea first comes to be in the absence of its object and 
longs for return to the thing whose image it is. Its very birth 
is an indication of its poverty, and its own will is a confession 
of shame of this. For not only do I want direct experience of 
whatever I have an idea of, because in the idea I get a hint of 
possible delights — as when hearing tell of sunny southern 
climes I desire to live there and be permanently warm — 
but the idea itself longs for contact with its object, in order 
to get assurance of itself. Every idea is much like the 
jealous lover, who is not content with his belief in his 
lady's love won from outward signs, but would fain bring 
it face to face with her very soul. Does not the idea long for 
possession of its object in perfect knowledge, just as body 
longs for possession of body in embrace ? What philosopher 
has not sighed for complete assurance of the truth through a 
union of his idea with the world ? To make assurance 
doubly sure through confrontation of idea with fact is the 
wish of every idea. 

The foregoing paragraph gives expression to what we may 
well call the romanticism of the idea, the youth of the intel- 



206 THE SELF AND NATURE 

lectual life. In youth we discover what we want independent 
of the conditions of the real; when mature we discover what 
the world allows us to possess; and then longing for the ideal 
— for the impossible — gives place to contentment with the 
actual. And so we reach the stage of the realism of the idea. 
For since the vicarious presence of the real through idea is, 
for the most part, all that we can have, if we contemn it, we 
are left with almost nothing. For of nature we can come into 
contact with only so much as is in touch with the body; to 
be present to the whole would involve the spreading out of 
the body to the dimensions of infinite space. The limit of 
sensation is the limit of the body; beyond this we can go 
only through idea. But even if we could get into touch with 
the whole, we could not keep in touch; for in so far as all 
things change, they slip away from our grasp ; the past, at 
any rate, we can possess only in idea. Finally, just as the 
spatial difference between the body and other things makes 
them inaccessible to us — except in idea ; so the separation 
of our bodies determines a separation of our souls — except 
in idea. 

Now, therefore, we perceive our need of ideas, our incapac- 
ity to dispense with them. And perceiving this, we win a 
new contentment with them. We renounce our mystical, 
romantic longings and are grateful for what we have. For 
this is what the idea does for us. First, it gives us a vicarious 
contact with that part of reality into touch with which we 
cannot get; and second, it affords us a means of keeping the 
actual as it slips away from us, preserving it in the only form 
in which we can keep it — as a vision, a memory. And with 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 207 

the vicarious presence of the object the idea brings all those 
values which the object itself would bring into our life, if 
there. Third, the idea enables us to unite our past with our 
present. We have not brought this service of the idea to the 
front as it deserves. All knowledge, even that of things with 
which we come in contact, involves a recognition or other 
treatment of them by means of concepts. Now the concept, 
as we have shown, is a precipitate of past experiences, a 
fusion of ideas, each one of which was a means for the vica- 
rious retention of some past fact. When, therefore, we apply 
a concept to a new experience we bring it into union with our 
whole past; we assimilate, appropriate it. Even if we could 
get into contact with the pulsing whole as it is actual at any 
moment, we should not be content. Or, let us suppose that 
the entire universe is a mind; even so, its life with itself, apart 
from the idea, would not be complete. For, without the idea, 
there would be no understanding of itself, no placing of itself 
upon the background of its past. And finally, through the 
idea, and only through the idea, are we able to envisage the 
unity of things. Our contact with reality is a piecemeal con- 
tact. Consider our knowledge of the simplest things, say of 
our own houses. We never get an immediate experience of 
the whole, of the relation of every part to every part. We 
get a perception of this and that part, and of the relation of 
this part to that part; but our knowledge of the totality is a 
thought, the result of a synthetic activity of the mind. And 
what is true of such simple things is a fortiori true of the 
larger unities of space and time, society and the cosmos. Our 
knowledge of all these things is an ideal construction. Since 



208 THE SELF AND NATURE 

these, therefore, are the abundant fruits of the idea, let no 
man, in the interests of what is called intuition, decry them. 
For if by intuition be meant anything accurate, it can mean 
only the contact of the self with reality, which, limited as it 
is to the content of the momentary mind, can produce no 
one of these fruits. 

Despite these services of ideas, certain things are still 
urged against them. 1 First, it is claimed that ideas dismem- 
ber what they know, isolating special features or parts from 
the rest, thus destroying their totality. For example, to 
have the idea of the head of an animal is supposed to be 
equivalent to thinking of the head as existing separate from 
the body. Even to have an idea of an individual at all is 
believed to be a falsification of reality, implying that the 
object is taken out of the whole of the world and isolated 
from its total background. This is the surgical theory of the 
idea. But knowledge is not cutting. For in meaning an in- 
dividual, or a part or aspect of an individual, I do not imply 
that it exists or could exist apart from the whole; I simply 
designate it in its place in the whole. I mean things as stand- 
ing in their relations, as elements in wholes. Every idea 
contains the world frame of its object implicit in its meaning, 
and can be developed so as to include that. If I mean leaf, I 
mean leaf-as-part-of-plant-which-grows-in-soil-and-is-part- 
of-my- total- world. Of course I mean primarily the thing as 
designated by name ; but in meaning it I do not imply any 
separation of it from the environment; for the environment 
is implicit in my meaning. 

1 Here and in the next paragraph I have reference chiefly to Bergson's 
theory of knowledge. 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 209 

Second, ideas are supposed to eternalize, whereas reality 
is a flux. Every idea, it is asserted, must have a determinate 
object; but reality is never fixed ; it is a fluid growth. Hence, 
in using ideas, I ascribe to reality a fixity which does not 
belong to it; and so I falsify it. But this, I think, is a theory 
of ideas sprung rather from a wish to discredit them than 
from any genuine understanding of them. It is like the 
opinion which one's enemy has of one's self — born of antip- 
athy rather than of the sympathy which brings understand- 
ing. For plainly I do not have to mean my objects as static; 
in so far as I mean growing things, I mean them as growing. 
I can, of course, recover of anything only the relatively 
permanent in it; but I can mean more than I recover, as 
every memory-idea attests. How, indeed, could I have an 
idea of change or growth at all if I could not mean change or 
growth? Moreover, the idea itself is no fixed and changeless 
thing; it too comes and goes, changes and develops — 
should not its own changefulness enable it to represent 
change ? 

But a still more fundamental charge may be urged against 
ideas. It may be said that they never afford us certainty 
except in the few cases where we can confront them with 
their objects. Does not the idea long for contact with its 
object in order to win assurance of itself; hence failing this, 
why should it have any contentment with itself at all ? Is it 
not possible that, once the romanticism of the intellectual 
life is over, instead of the realism of thought, scepticism may 
take its place ? Hence we reach the pathology of thought. 
Just as the disillusionment of the dreams of youth may lead 



2IO THE SELF AND NATURE 

to distaste for life, even to suicide, instead of being the pre- 
liminary to the construction of a possible happiness; so the 
idea, awakening to its incapacity to encompass all reality, 
may begin to doubt its representative power. 

The cure in both cases can come only from the enlight- 
ened reassertion of the original impulse to activity, its own 
self -correction. First, as has been shown so often, a univer- 
sal scepticism on the part of the idea is self-refuting. For the 
opinion that all ideas are erroneous is itself an opinion, and 
so cannot maintain itself. And if we limit the scope of the 
assertion, affirming that all ideas except this one are erro- 
neous, we are immediately confronted with the contrary of 
this opinion, namely that all ideas are true, which, taken in 
itself, is as credible as the other. The two opinions therefore 
cancel each other, and the result is nil. But is not the scepti- 
cal opinion better based than the other, since we have so 
often found our ideas in error ? Yet have we ever found an 
idea in error except on the testimony of some other idea 
which we have believed ? And the general power of the idea 
to represent truly is well known to us; for, in the case of our 
ideas of mental content at least, we can bring the idea face 
to face with the object and see that what was meant is there. 
And a reflective doubt that ideas which mean things beyond 
the mind may be all in error is incapable of destroying belief. 
For, independent of this reflection, these ideas assert them- 
selves; they carry within themselves their own standards 
and tests of assurance; a gratuitous scepticism cannot reach 
down and touch this primitive self-confidence. We find it 
impossible really to doubt the existence of our fellow men or 



METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF UNIVERSALS 211 

of a physical non-self in some form. The pyrrhonic doubt 
has only the force of a play supervening upon the serious- 
ness of the idea, and incapable of corrupting it. The desire 
of the idea for absolute assurance is only the wish to increase 
that native confidence in itself which the idea cannot fail to 
possess. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 

THROUGHOUT all of our studies we have come upon 
the fact of relation. We have found mind related to 
the body and to nature, and all existences related to one 
another in space and time and causality. 

How shall we interpret this omnipresent fact of relation ? 
What is implied as to the nature of things by their being 
related ? In other chapters we studied some of the more con- 
crete relations ; here we wish to solve the problem in its most 
general form. We shall proceed in a free fashion, reverting 
to the original facts; but, in large measure, we shall follow 
along paths already established; for many results already 
won are secure. No apology is offered for the abstractness of 
much of the treatment; for scope is gained by abstractness, 
since whatever can be proved of relations generally must 
hold of every concrete case. Yet we shall not neglect the 
vivid instance where the universal truth is best revealed. 

Let us start with the view of relations as mere properties 
of individuals — the theory of monadism, of which Leibnitz 
still remains the most persuasive advocate. The world, it is 
assumed, is a plurality irreducible; any statement of rela- 
tion, any mode of unification of things, is only a convenient 
short method of combining independent statements about 
each thing. You can always analyze a proposition express- 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 213 

ing a relation between two things into two propositions; 
and such a proposition does not express one fact, a single 
situation, but two facts. If, for example, I say " A loves B" 
I mean that A has certain emotions and purposes and that in 
B likewise there is a characteristic attitude of mind. That 
is all. Being related is not being bound by a tie, the form- 
ing of one by two, like the joining of hands in a dance, but a 
mere taking of attitude towards each other, like the pre- 
liminary courtesying of partners. All causal relations, for 
example, are simply statements of change in one individual 
following upon, or in response to, changes in another individ- 
ual. The proposition " A causes B " means that event A in 
the life of individual X is followed by event B in the life of 
another individual F. Causality is not necessitation, con- 
straint, a dragging of one by another; it does not involve the 
contact of the interacting agents. It is a free response, like a 
dialogue between self-sufficient individuals aloof. 

As for ideal relations, such as greater and less, like and 
unlike, monadism has a similar interpretation. The state- 
ment of relation is a condensed statement about each term 
of the relation. If, for example, I say that two blue things 
are alike, I mean that the one is blue and that the other is 
blue. The " and " here has no objective significance; it does 
not unite the terms in themselves, but only in my apprehen- 
sion of them. The relation, again, is a response, only not a 
response in action, but in thought. If I say that A is greater 
than B, I mean that A possesses one extent and B another, 
and that the effect of both upon me is a certain reaction or 
feeling of " greater- than." Every ideal relation, therefore, is 



214 THE SELF AND NATURE 

analyzable into an objective component, consisting of quali- 
ties of the related terms, and a subjective component, con- 
sisting in the feeling of relatedness, which is the seeming 
unification. 

Bradley and Russell have subjected monadism to valuable 
formal criticism. Take Bradley's critique first. 1 Monadism, 
we have seen, interprets relations as statements of qualities 
supposed to inhere in ultimately real individuals. Whenever 
I affirm a relation between A and B, I ascribe a quality to A 
and a quality to B. But consider either of the terms, say A. 
To some extent at least, A is independent of its relation to 
B, and therefore must possess at least one quality on its own 
account. Hence A possesses at least two qualities. Or if, as 
I think Leibnitz believed, A 's qualities are all derived from 
its responses to other things (an untenable view, as we shall 
try to show), since there are more than two things in the 
universe and since each must respond to the others, A must, 
for this reason also, possess several properties. Each individ- 
ual is therefore complex. But now, what of its various quali- 
ties ? The problem of relations between things, with which 
we started, breaks out afresh between the qualities within 
each thing. We must, if consistent, reduce our individuals 
each to a new plurality. If, for example, we assume that the 
ultimate individuals are selves, we must conceive of them 
as a mere collection of sensations or other psychic atoms. 
Hence they cease to be the real individuals which we had 
supposed them to be. The effort to reduce relations to the 
terms related results in the destruction of the terms them- 

1 Appearance and Reality, Chap. in. 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 21 5 

selves. Herbart's view is the sole issue — there is only the 
multitude of the absolute simples — unity is an illusion. 

Royce x has proved the untenability of this, the final con- 
sequence of monadism. For, even if unity is an illusion, the 
illusion of unity is at least real. And whose illusion is it ? 
Is it perhaps mine ? If so, this cannot mean that I am a 
complex individual of which the illusion is a part; for, 
according to monadism, there are no complex things. Hence 
the illusion must be a simple ultimate element belonging 
nowhere. If any sort of distinction were made between the 
illusion and the rest of the self, a complex individual would 
be admitted to exist, and with it the old problem of relations. 
No; the illusion must be allowed a free, unencumbered 
being. Yet let us look at it more narrowly. Is the illusion a 
bare and simple thing after all ? The illusion is of A related 
to B, of A united with B. I can, therefore, distinguish parts 
in the idea itself. An idea of A related to B cannot be abso- 
lutely simple, but must contain distinguishable aspects. 
Hence, once more, I must pursue the process of reduction. 
And, if I do, how is the illusion of A related to B possible at 
all ? How can such a meaning be distributed among the 
atoms of an idea ? 

Hence, when carried out ruthlessly, consequentially, 
monadism involves a denial of all complexity and is unable 
to account for that which is given as a starting point — the 
appearance of unity. In the self, in our ideas, there is a 
given complexity, a reality of relations irreducible to atomic 
quality. At present, however, no one accepts monadism in 

1 The World and the Individual, vol. i. Supplementary Essay. 



2l6 THE SELF AND NATURE 

its ultimate form. A new theory, pluralistic idealism, a com- 
promise form of monadism, yet still dependent on Leibnitz, 
has taken its place. Yet, before examining this, I wish to 
consider Russell's argument against monadism. 

Russell 1 argues that monadism is unable to explain the 
difference between a symmetrical and an asymmetrical rela- 
tion. For consider the asymmetrical relation " greater- than." 
If you seek to analyze it into quality a possessed by A and 
quality b possessed by B, you do not offer any interpretation 
of the sense of the relation ; you do not tell us whether A is 
greater than B or whether B is greater than A ; for all that 
we know, the relation might hold either way, that is, might 
be symmetrical. Now I do not think this a cogent argu- 
ment against a thoroughgoing monadism. Monadism must 
suppose that size is something absolute, a quality like blue or 
green. The relatedness, including the sense of the relation , 
would be only a reaction of the observer upon the two quali- 
ties. Asymmetry would be a subjective mode of feeling, not 
an objective fact, the mind pitched in a certain way, dif- 
ferent in the case of symmetry. Furthermore, the edge is 
somewhat taken off of the argument by Royce's discovery 
that every asymmetrical relation can be reduced to a 
symmetrical one. 2 

The contemporary way out of the difficulties of monadism 
is to limit the application of the principle. One type only of 
complex individual is admitted, the self, in which relations 
are real ; for there unity is a matter of direct experience and 

1 The Principles of Mathematics, sec. 214. 

2 "The Relation of the Principles of Logic to the Foundations of 
Geometry," in Trans. Am. Math. Soc, July, 1905. 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 217 

an atomic constitution is palpably false. Selves are the 
atoms. The relations between selves, however, are to be 
interpreted in strict monadistic fashion as qualities of the 
latter. Bradley's dialectic argument does not apply because 
the possibility of the interrelation of many qualities is 
granted in the case of the self — the dialectic is arrested at 
this point. 

The arguments for this position go back to Leibnitz. The 
initial assumption of monadism is granted; there must be 
real individuals to compose the substance of the world and 
to afford a support for relations. But genuine individuals are 
discoverable only in the case of selves, which alone possess 
an indiscerptible unity. Turn the attention to any other 
empirical thing; it is no true individual; only arbitrarily, 
by means of your selective, interested attention, is it sepa- 
rated from environing things. Or regard the thing internally; 
you can cut it into halves, each of which will serve you just 
as well for an individual; and these halves may be again 
divided, and so on. Such a thing possesses no individuality 
which marks it off as one from other things, and no internal 
unity forbidding division. Moreover, empirical things are 
only presentations of the self; they have no being of their 
own. But selves, in contrast to things, possess all the attri- 
butes essential to individuality. At every moment con- 
sciousness is whole ; its distinctness from other things is not 
a matter of arbitrary external interest and selection ; it is an 
indivisible distinguishing; and the unity also is no arbitrary 
imposition from the outside, but a self-felt unity. You can, 
of course, distinguish elements in the self; but you have to 



21 8 THE SELF AND NATURE 

recognize that they could not exist separate; that they are 
more or less artificially made; that the whole alone is given. 
Hence the self is the only real individual; the others are 
constructions of the self to serve its purposes, formed after 
the analogy of the self. 

After the individual has been identified with the self, the 
interpretation of relations proceeds much after the fashion of 
rigorous monadism. A purely subjectivistic interpretation 
of ideal relations is required by the theory. For example, the 
likeness or unlikeness of two sense data or of two personali- 
ties must be interpreted as " feelings-of -relation " in response 
to these facts. Spatial or dynamic relations of things within 
the mind are to be conceived differently, however, for there 
the relations are of elements of the self; hence, since the self 
is allowed to be a real whole, the connections between its 
elements must be allowed to be as real as the elements them- 
selves, as genuinely empirical and substantial as they. As 
for causal and other real relations between selves, they are 
interpreted as responses in the fashion already expounded. 

The first thing that gives one pause when one scrutinizes 
this modified monadism is just the fact that it is based on the 
limitation of a principle in general accepted. One inevitably 
begins to inquire whether the limitation be not arbitrarily 
imposed; one wonders whether a principle found to be 
faulty within the self must not also be inadequate between 
selves. One would think, I should suppose, that a satisfac- 
tory theory of relations would hold everywhere. At any 
rate, it is plain that modified monadism stands or falls with 
the adequacy of its interpretation of the relations between 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 219 

selves. These we shall proceed to examine, after which we 
shall be led into another theory of relations. 

Every one will grant, I suppose, that there are at least 
three relations between selves: the causal, temporal and 
noetic. Let us begin with inquiring into the pluralistic treat- 
ment of the first. Suppose I speak and you hear or I walk 
and you see me walk; then your auditory and visual sensa- 
tions are connected with my voluntary muscular sensations. 
Now, for monadism, since each of these events is within a 
different mind, and since minds are separate and there is 
nothing real besides them, the relation of causation can exist 
only as some fact in each of the minds between which, as we 
say, it holds. Yet what can this fact be ? For there seems 
to be nothing besides the events; there is event A in one 
mind and event B in another mind; that is all. It is of 
course true that B follows A, and follows regularly. But 
mere sequence is not causation, even when sequence is 
habitual; there must be, in addition, activity, necessity. To 
this, of course, the monadist has his answer ready: " Fact is 
the sole necessity; or rather, necessity is the subjective side 
of fact. The habitual sequence of A upon B constrains the 
mind to infer from the proposition ' A exists ' to the prop- 
osition ' B will exist soon after/ The logical relation of 
implication between the propositions which state the facts 
in question is the causal tie between them; and the con- 
straint felt by the mind in passing from one to the other is 
the necessity which you seek." But, as we have shown in our 
chapter on Causality, in order that there may be some basis 
for confidence in such implications between propositions, 



220 THE SELF AND NATURE 

there must be some objective necessity in the facts which the 
propositions report. A logical relation is valid only because 
of some real relation. And the truth that B has often 
followed A in the past does not guarantee that it will do so 
in the future. 

This, I think, is the heart of Lotze's famous critique of in- 
teraction conceived monadistically. 1 It is impossible to un- 
derstand, once you have conceived of individuals as monads, 
how there can be any influence of one upon another, any real 
tie between them. Ward, 2 in his answer to Lotze, misses this 
point entirely. If we grant, he says, that individuals are " in 
sympathetic rapport " we obviate the difficulty. But what is 
sympathetic rapport ? Is it anything more than just a re- 
naming of the fact of habitual sequence ? Does it include 
that constraint, that necessitation, which makes of causation 
something more than mere habit ? If it does, how can it 
exist between individuals which are in no sort of substantial 
contact with one another ? The notion of causation is 
derived, like all other notions, from certain personal experi- 
ences, of which it is the reflection. Now, in our own life we 
find that one thing grows out of, is forced into, made out of 
some other; that there is necessity in this process because it 
embodies a conation; that this growing and making and 
constraining is in and upon elements which jostle and jolt 
and keep in contact with one another. Such is causation as 
we know it in our lives. Snap the contacts and the unifying 
purpose, and the whole thing becomes incomprehensible. 

1 Grundzuge der Metaphysik, 1883, sec. 48. 

2 The Realm of Ends, Lecture X. 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 221 

Monadism involves, in effect, a denial of causality between 
events in different minds, for which mere correlation is 
substituted. 

We are thus brought to the second type of relation, the 
temporal, admitted to obtain between events in different 
minds. How does monadism interpret this ? Of the two 
fundamental temporal relations, contemporaneity and se- 
quence, it will be sufficient to consider the latter. Since the 
sequent events are each in a different mind, there cannot 
exist between them, of course, that experienced relation, 
called by us contact-sequence, which we observe between 
events in our own minds. The monadist must conceive of it 
according to his own doctrine of relations as a mere " feeling 
of relation " invoked in the mind which knows it. For 
monadism, there can be no real order in events belonging to 
different minds; there can be only events with their char- 
acteristic qualities; their order is simply a form which is 
imposed upon them by the apperceiving mind. The proposi- 
tion "A follows B," when A and B are events belonging to 
different minds, can mean nothing more than that A has one 
quality and B another, and that the knowledge of the two 
together makes a certain impression on the human mind — 
an ordinal feeling. Thus time becomes subjective, a mere 
" tendency to feign " or fiction. Causal relations between 
events in different minds vanish into temporal relations, and 
these vanish altogether. Only when some real contact be- 
tween the elements of the world is admitted to exist can 
there be a real relation of sequence between them. Then, 
through the mediation of the intervening substance, an 



222 THE SELF AND NATURE 

event in one mind and an event in another would be con- 
nected by the same sort of contact-sequence as exists 
between successive events in a single mind. There would be 
only one sequence — between successive phases of the one 
universe, of which what we call separate events and minds 
would be only parts. 

Last, we have to inquire how modified monadism inter- 
prets the cognitive relations between minds. It is perhaps 
possible for one to deny causal and temporal relations be- 
tween minds conceived of monadistically. The conception 
of the universe as a multitude of separate lives, each running 
its own course unaffected by the lives of others, while wholly 
unreal, is, perhaps, not utterly unthinkable. One might con- 
ceive of the apparent interactions between minds as due 
wholly to the chance conjunction of events resulting from 
the internal development of each. If, for example, you seem 
to influence my life by your thought or example, the change 
in me may really be due to some spontaneous growth 
within, which just happens to coincide with the expression 
of your thought in teaching or action. Such an accidental 
harmony of events is at least a stateable doctrine. But it is 
not possible to deny cognitive relations between selves. For, 
even if your life is without any other real influence on 
mine, if I can afiirm your existence, I must have some 
knowledge of you. How can pluralistic idealism interpret 
this knowledge which one self has of another ? 

Monadism is, of course, committed to a representative 
theory of the knowledge of other minds. Since minds are 
existentially separate, the knowledge which one has of 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 223 

another cannot imply that the mind which knows possesses 
the life of the other, but only ideas which mean or represent 
that life. Now whenever an idea knows an object there is 
some relation between the two by reason of which the idea 
knows this object rather than that; the idea and the object 
are not on the same level with reference to each other that 
they are with reference to the rest of the universe; there is 
some distinguishing communion between them. I may in- 
terpret this relation variously as resemblance or causation. 
Suppose I interpret it as some unique resemblance between 
the two, by reason of which the idea may take the place of 
the object in my mind. How then would monadism interpret 
this ? In accordance with the scheme of interpretation to 
which it is committed, the relation must be reduced to quali- 
ties of the terms related. Suppose, for example, that the idea 
is of you laughing, formed by me through the interpretation 
of sensations of my own which I call your body, and that the 
object which it knows and resembles is you laughing; each, 
therefore, has the quality of laughter. Yet it seems impos- 
sible to interpret the resemblance of idea and object in this 
simple fashion. We grant that when two things are alike 
they have each a certain quality; but they are alike only 
when they have " like " qualities. The monadist's answer 
to this objection is, of course, that the element of likeness in 
the situation is just a reaction of the mind which knows 
them to the terms together. But " together " — is not 
togetherness itself a relation ? " To be sure," the monadist 
would reply, " but the togetherness is just the co-presence 
of the two terms in consciousness; it is one of those experien- 



224 THE SELF AND NATURE 

tial relations, which modified monadism is prepared to 
admit, holding only when things are in consciousness. The 
resemblance between idea and object is the feeling which I 
have when I get the idea and the object into the one unity of 
apperception." But, according to the representative theory 
of knowledge, I never can get the object in mind; I can 
possess only an idea of it. The resemblance between idea 
and object turns out to be the resemblance between my idea 
of the object and my idea of the idea reflectively obtained. 
Hence, resemblance cannot be asserted between idea and 
object. If now the monadist persists, declaring that this is 
still possible because, since the idea takes the place of the 
object, whatever is true of the idea is true of the object, and 
therefore whatever is affirmed of the idea of the object and 
of the idea of the idea is true of the idea and the object, we 
call his attention to the fact that, in his reply, he is covertly 
using the very relation of representation which he set out to 
explain. He seeks to explain representation in terms of 
resemblance, but, in order to explain resemblance, he is 
driven back again upon representation. 

There is no way open for him to interpret representation 
in terms of causation; he cannot say that an idea means its 
object when the latter controls it in his mind; for he has 
already denied the existence of causal relations outside of the 
mind. The monadist can get no further than the pre-estab- 
lished harmony of Leibnitz, which is simply a renaming of 
the facts. He points to correspondences, of which we have 
always been aware; he does not give us what we seek — 
linkages. If now, as a last resort, he declares that knowledge 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 225 

is just the existence of an idea and the existence of an object, 
with no relation at all between them, failure is instanta- 
neous. For, as Royce * has urged, the mere existence of two 
things does not make the one a knowing of the other. What 
makes the idea an idea of that one thing rather than of 
another thing ? Apart from some ideal relation like resem- 
blance or some real relation like causation, knowledge is 
unthinkable. Scepticism or subjectivism is the logical out- 
come of monadism. Just as time and causation become mere 
forms of the spirit without objective validity, so knowledge 
becomes a mere state of mind undetermined by and unre- 
lated to the world which it pretends to know. The possibility 
that all our boasted knowledge be only a vagrant dream or 
an insidious lie becomes more than a vain suggestion. 

The failure of monadism compels us to seek elsewhere for 
a satisfactory theory of relations. An alternative view, 
apparently the simplest of all, is to accept relations as ulti- 
mate. This view has today the high authority of Russell. 2 
A pluralism, not of terms, but of terms and relations is sup- 
posed to be ultimate. The terms are either simple, corre- 
sponding to the atoms of monadism, or complex, capable of 
being reduced to simple terms in relation. By means of this 
general scheme, things of any order, even of infinite order of 
complexity, can be built up. The task of science is denned 
as the discovery of the ultimate elements and relations in all 
things and situations. For example, space is analyzed into 
simple elements called points with relations of order and 

1 The World and the Individual, vol. i, Lecture VII. 

2 Op. cit., passim. 



226 THE SELF AND NATURE 

distance between them. These simplest elements with their 
relations constitute wholes — extents of space — which 
may themselves stand in relation to other things of like 
order of complexity, and so create the final whole of 
space. Or consider the self; this is analyzed into elemen- 
tary sensations bound by relations temporal, causal, and 
associative; and, through its relations to other selves, it 
may itself be an element in a whole of higher order — a 
society. 

No discussion of this, as of all other theories, would be 
satisfactory without reference to Bradley's * critique. This 
critique contains two main parts. The first is as follows. If 
you accept terms and relations as ultimate, you really fail to 
do what it seems self-evident that you must do — you fail to 
bring your terms into relation. For, let us consider any com- 
plex situation: A related to B, symbolized as ARB. Then, 
according to the theory in question, A is one thing, R is 
another and B is a third, each being just what it is distinct 
from the others. Yet surely, A and B, and B and R, must be 
related: A has the relation to B, and B has the converse 
relation to A . There is then a relation, a new one, between 
A and R, let us call it r. But if now we consider A and r, the 
same situation confronts us. And plainly this process can 
never end: there must exist an infinity of relations between 
A and R. But, argues Bradley, an infinity of relations be- 
tween A and R is equivalent to no relations at all; the logic 
of relations adopted results in the destruction of all relations ; 
it is therefore self-contradictory, hence, false. 

1 Op. tit., passim. 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 227 

Both Russell x and Royce 2 seek to evade this difficulty by 
maintaining that the infinity of relations involved does not 
destroy relation : R relates A and B in the first instance, and 
the other relations implied by the original one do not 
destroy its integrity. But the force of Bradley's argument is 
not thus overcome, I believe. The point that is not met is 
this : If you take relations as distinct and ultimate, you get a 
situation of infinite complexity for your thought, whereas 
empirically no such thing exists. If, for example, A is father 
of B, no such infinitely complex situation can be observed; 
in so far as relations are directly experienced, they bind ele- 
ments quite simply. This is the contention of James, 3 
although he fails to perceive that it is no objection to 
Bradley, but rather a confirmation of Bradley's view. To 
state the argument in a new form : even if the infinite regress 
is not inconsistent with itself, it is in contradiction with the 
nature of reality as presented in our experience. 

The root of the difficulty lies in treating relation as if it 
were itself an individual. When so treated, of course, it 
must be brought into relation again with the original individ- 
uals related. The infinity of relations pointed out by Bradley 
is the natural result. To defend this, as Russell does, is to 
persist in the original error. The relation is not one thing 
and the two terms two others. This may seem to be the case 
only because we use an individual term to designate it. A 
relation is a mode of union; it is not itself a thing which 

1 Op. cit., sec. 99. 

2 The World and the Individual, vol. i. Supplementary Essay. 

3 The Thing and its Relations, " Journ. of Philos.," etc., vol. iv, January 
19, 1905, 



228 THE SELF AND NATURE 

could be united with another thing. When, as the result of 
some triumph, a man's self is filled with pride and exulta- 
tion, there is surely a relation between his thoughts and his 
emotion; they are permeated with it; and we recognize 
immediately the union which is present and directly experi- 
enced. But there is no experience of a relation between this 
relation and its terms. What we experience is the union of 
thought and emotion, not the union of the union and the 
emotion. Russell does not assume, I suppose, that there is a 
complexity of this kind in immediate experience, but only in 
experience reflectively considered. But the point of interest 
is whether the account is a description of the actual situa- 
tion; and as such, as we have seen, it is false. How it seems 
to arise in reflection we have already indicated. In the 
description of the situation we use a concept of relation 
which, as concept, is an irfdividual thing; we can therefore 
inquire into its relation to the concepts which indicate the 
individuals related. This relation will then be found; it will 
be a new one directly experienced on the plane of thought. 
If now we wish to designate it, we have to make use of 
another individual concept; whence the same situation 
arises again, and so on in infinitum. But throughout we 
have been dealing with the concepts used in the description 
of the facts, not with the facts themselves. 

Bradley's 1 well-known argument against relations, or 
rather against the theory of relations as self-subsistent 
entities, is as follows: If A, R, and B are distinguishable, 
then A, for example, must have some nature independent of 

1 Loc. cit. For another discussion of this point, see beyond, on page 260. 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 229 

the relation R in which it now happens to stand; yet it can- 
not be wholly unaffected by this relation; for, if it were, the 
latter would be totally foreign to it. Hence A must have one 
part as term in relation and another part as term in itself. 
Call the former a and the latter b. But, in accordance with 
the theory of relations under discussion, a and b must them- 
selves be related, hence the problem breaks out afresh. Our 
original term A turns out to be infinitely complex; its 
relation destroys its simplicity; there are no simple terms. 

At present the favorite way of avoiding this difficulty is to 
deny that a term is affected by its relations — relations are 
" external." This is quite in line with the theory of relations 
as ultimate. A term is just itself, whether unrelated or in 
relation; the acquirement of a new relation or the loss of an 
old one does not affect its nature at all. The inadequacy of 
this answer consists in its variance with the plain facts of 
ordinary experience. No object with which we are familiar 
remains identical after the acquirement of a new relation; 
the relation never leaves the term unaffected. No man is the 
same after he has accepted a new office, undertaken new 
duties, entered a new club, and so on. For example, no man 
is the same after marriage or parenthood. The falsity of the 
theory of relations as external is palpable in the case of social 
relations. But it is no less striking in the case of physical or 
psychical relations. The weight, heat-energy, even size and 
shape of physical things is absolutely dependent on relation 
to other physical things; it is even impossible to define these 
qualities apart from relations. 1 In the realm of mind there is 

1 See, for example, Stallo : Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics. 



230 THE SELF AND NATURE 

no contact with a new object, idea or emotion that does not 
penetrate into the very core of the self, transforming it, not 
merely as a whole, but in its several parts, coloring each. 
Moreover, it is plain that relations and terms are not indif- 
ferent to one another, from the fact that all terms cannot 
stand in all relations. A stone cannot hate a man, a thought 
cannot be heavier than an emotion. Not only do terms 
depend on relations, but relations depend on terms. Love, 
for example, can subsist only between animals, romantic love 
only between members of the genus homo. And finally, no 
relations can subsist at all without terms. 

In his famous critique of Bradley's theory of relations, 
James x objects to the use of concrete relations and situations 
in the discussion of the internality or externality of relations. 
Such a use, he argues, involves an appeal to physical, social 
and other such facts which complicate and obscure the 
purely logical situations under discussion. For example, he 
says that it is wrong in considering whether change of spatial 
relations affects things to point to the obvious thermal and 
gravitational alterations involved. The reply to this seems 
to me to consist in emphasizing the fact that there are no 
purely logical relations. Logical relations are only the most 
abstract features of real physical, social and psychical rela- 
tions. The logical relation of antecedence and consequence, 
for example, so fundamental in all order, does not exist in 
itself; what exist are such concrete relations as before and 
after in space and time, greater and less among quantities, 
precedence and subordination in rank, and the like. Yet it is 

1 The Thing and its Relations. 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 23 1 

possible to argue the theory of relations from an abstract 
logical point of view; yet not, I think, with anything like 
the same vividness. 

.We may sum the arguments against RusselPs view as fol- 
lows: (1) You cannot treat relations as independent facts, 
because if you do, you really fail to relate individuals; thus 
interpreted, relations fail to perform their obvious function. 
(2) Individuals are themselves not independent of relations. 
In so far as all things are related, they are at least partly 
made by relations. (3) Relations are not independent of 
individuals; for particular relations can exist only between 
particular individuals. 

We turn now to the last current attempt to interpret re- 
lations — the monistic. This view is best represented by 
Bradley and has found its keenest critic in Russell. 

The view is as follows: any statement of relation between 
individuals is to be interpreted as a statement about a whole 
which they form, as the ascription of a quality to them all 
together. The real subject of a relational proposition is not 
any one of its terms, but the whole which they constitute, 
and the relation asserted is a predicate of that whole. When- 
ever we seem to find individuals in relation, the real fact is 
the existence of one individual, of which the former are mem- 
bers. A relation is a quality of a total situation. In so far, 
then, as things are related, they are subservient and second- 
ary to the whole which they form, and any quality, which 
they may possess through being related, they derive through 
membership in it. Relationship is thus reduced to quality 
of a whole, and, since all things are related, individuality is 



232 THE SELF AND NATURE 

reduced to membership in the one absolute individual, the 
universe. 

Let us apply this theory to some concrete cases. The rela- 
tions between members of a family imply their existence as 
members of an individual of higher order — a family spirit 
— which determines them to be what they are. The love 
that may be between them is not a mere sentiment of the 
father, mother, and children severally, but a feeling which 
pervades the whole, and in which they share. They do not 
create it ; on the contrary, it informs and uses them as its 
instruments. Or if, on the other hand, there be strife in that 
family, that too is a dissension in the whole, an experience 
not existing distributively in the members of the family, but 
qualifying the whole, and through the whole, the members. 
Those that love are made into one through their love, and in 
loving express not so much themselves as love itself, which 
uses them as its organs. Causal relations, again, imply the 
existence of a whole which includes all things. The supposed 
interactions between the parts of this whole are really only 
'qualitative changes of its single nature. When consistently 
carried out, as Russell has shown, 1 this view results in the 
denial of any real individuality short of that of the universe. 
For in so far as two things are, as such, different, they 
must, since difference is a relation, make a whole of which 
difference itself is a quality. Difference is not, therefore, a 
character of things which are different, but of the one thing 
which includes them, and through including them makes 
them different. Hence even difference is determined by the 
whole, and all real individuality vanishes. 

1 Op. cit., sees. 215, 425. 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 233 

The monistic theory may seek a psycho-epistemological as 
well as a logical basis. All knowledge begins with the whole 
and finds parts only subsequently. For example, we know 
the human body first through its activity as a whole; it is 
the man, the total attitudes and movements, with which we 
start. We then proceed to distinguish the various limbs and 
organs according to spatial solidarity and differentiation of 
function. The division of the organs into tissues and of the 
tissues into cells is a later acquisition. Only recently have 
parts been discerned in the cell itself. Throughout, the pro- 
cedure has been from the whole to the parts. Logically the 
whole from which we start is prior to the elements which we 
subsequently discover. The failure to recognize this is 
responsible for many of the difficulties of physiology and 
biology. Exactly the same process has taken place in the 
study of the self. We start with the self as a whole, the first 
and most indubitable piece of psychological knowledge. The 
distinction of the various kinds of elements, sensations and 
feelings, and the modes of their combination in association 
or active synthesis, is secondary to the prime discovery of 
the self. The failure of associationism and psychological 
atomism has its origin in the failure to perceive that in pass- 
ing from the self to its elements we do not destroy it; it 
remains the primary reality, and its efficacy as a whole 
persists and has to be reckoned with. 

Russell's Principles of Mathematics 1 contains several 
logical arguments against the monistic theory of relations. 
The first is as follows: Consider A in relation to B, symbol- 

1 Op. cit., sec. 215. 



234 THE SELF AND NATURE 

ized as ARB. Suppose that R is an asymmetrical relation, 
that is, a relation such that if ARB is true, then BRA is 
false. Now " the monistic theory of relations holds that 
every relational proposition ARB is to be resolved into a 
proposition concerning the whole which A and B compose 
— a proposition which we may denote by (AB)R. . . . The 
proposition A is greater than B, we are told, does not really 
say anything about either A or B, but about the two to- 
gether. Denoting the whole which they compose by (AB), 
it says, we will suppose, t {AB) contains diversity of magni- 
tude.' Now to this statement there is a special objection in 
the case of asymmetry. {AB) is symmetrical with respect to 
A and B, and thus the property of the whole will be exactly 
the same in the case where A is greater than B as in the case 
where B is greater than A ... in the whole {AB) as such 
there is neither antecedent nor consequent. In order to dis- 
tinguish a whole (AB) from a whole {BA ) , as we must do if we 
are to explain asymmetry, we shall be forced back from the 
whole to the parts and their relation. For (AB) and (BA) 
consist of precisely the same parts, and differ in no respect 
whatever save the sense of the relation between A and B. 
1 A is greater than B ' and ' B is greater than A ' are proposi- 
tions containing precisely the same constituents, and giving 
rise therefore to precisely the same whole; their difference 
lies solely in the fact that greater is, in the first case, a rela- 
tion of A to B, in the second, a relation of B to A . Thus the 
distinction of sense, that is, the distinction between an 
asymmetrical relation and its converse, is one which the 
monistic theory of relations is wholly unable to explain.' ' 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 235 

This argument from asymmetrical relations might seem 
to have lost all of its force here, just as in the case of the 
monadistic theory, through Royce's discovery already cited 
that asymmetrical relations can be defined in terms of 
symmetrical ones. Royce has shown how that most general 
of all asymmetrical relations, the relation of antecedence 
and consequence, can be denned in terms of his perfectly 
symmetrical O-relation; whence it follows that the order 
systems of space and time, the implication of propositions, 
the inclusion of classes, the greater and less of quantities, all 
of which seem to depend on asymmetry, are really definable 
in terms of symmetry. But doubts have been raised against 
this reduction of asymmetry to symmetry. For, consider a 
very simple case, the order of three points on a line. Call the 
points A, B, and C, and let them be in this order. Now at 
first sight the order seems to be definable only in terms of 
some asymmetrical and transitive relation such as " before/' 
the two propositions " A is before B " and " B is before C " 
defining the order of the terms in question. But if we make 
use of the perfectly symmetrical relations "next to " and 
" not next to," it is plain that we can express precisely the 
same facts; the same order of elements is given by the logi- 
cal product of the three statements "A is next to B" " B is 
next to C " and " C is not next to A" the last proposition 
being necessary to insure that the series be an open and not 
a closed one. But now, have we actually redefined the 
order without any covert assumption of asymmetry ? That 
something of the kind has been done can be seen if we 
consider what would be the definition of the order CBA, 



236 THE SELF AND NATURE 

in terms of the symmetrical relations "next to" and "not 
next to." Suppose we take the converse of each of the above 
propositions, beginning however with the last one, and 
forming their logical product. We then get: "A is not 
next to C," "C is next to £," "B is next to A." And this 
is the definition which we seek. But now, since the original 
propositions are symmetrical, and the relation of product 
between propositions is also commutative and symmetrical, 
our new definition is precisely equivalent to the one from 
which we started. As a mere inspection of the case suffices 
to show, the symmetrical definition is as good for the order 
CBA as for ABC; hence, in itself, it does not provide for the 
distinction between them. As Royce himself puts it, the 
distinction between an asymmetrical relation and its con- 
verse, hence the very existence of an asymmetrical relation, 
depends on the choice of an origin. Whether we shall read 
ABC or CBA, the direction or sense of the order, depends 
wholly on whether we choose A or C as a " base." This 
determines whether C is before B or B is before C 

The results which follow from this discussion are of the 
utmost importance. First, there is the fact — which how- 
ever we do not use here — that there is an aspect of every 
ordinal situation which can be expressed in symmetrical 
terms. Yet this does not prove, as Royce asserts, that the 
distinction between a symmetrical and an asymmetrical 
relation is a superficial one; for, as we shall show, the choice 
of a base, upon which the existence of asymmetry depends, 
is not arbitrary, but grounded in the very nature of reality. 
What is of capital importance to us just now is the fact that 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 237 

in order to get the meaning of asymmetry, the sense or 
direction of a relation, it is necessary to have recourse to 
some definite, particular element in the whole which the 
related elements form. Hence the precise point of Russell's 
objection to the monistic theory of relations remains, despite 
Royce's discovery. It constitutes, in my opinion, a fatal 
objection to extreme forms of monism. It proves that the 
whole cannot predetermine the complete character of the 
parts, that you cannot describe the whole as whole, neglect- 
ing the individuality of the parts, and get all the meaning 
which it contains. 

RusselPs * second objection is as follows : Monism pre- 
supposes that all statements of relation can be interpreted 
as the ascription of corresponding predicates to the whole 
formed by the elements in relation; that is, that all propo- 
sitions can be resolved into subject-predicate propositions. 
But " a predicate is either something or nothing. If nothing 
it cannot be predicated, and the pretended proposition col- 
lapses. If something, predication expresses a relation," 
which, by the way, is also asymmetrical, thus involving the 
theory in contradiction with itself, and entailing the first 
difficulty. 

Again, if every relation is reduced to some quality of the 
one whole, the universe, we are no further towards a final 
reduction of relations than when we started; for the quali- 
ties of the whole would themselves stand in relation to one 
another. A situation would exist like that pointed out by 
Bradley in his objection to monadism, with the universe 
substituted for the many separate individuals. 

1 Op. cit., sec. 426. 



238 THE SELF AND NATURE 

A final difficulty, also due to Russell, is the following: — 
ARB implies, according to monism, that there exists a whole 
of which A and B are members. There is then a relation — 
that of membership of A and B in the whole — still on our 
hands to interpret. Apparently we have got no further than 
we were at the start. We have simply shifted the burden of 
interpretation from the relation between the elements to the 
relation between the elements and the whole. If now the 
monist goes on to interpret this relation in terms of his 
scheme, he meets with unwelcome consequences. The rela- 
tion of A to the whole of which it is a member becomes a 
mere quality of the whole AB. That is, membership in the 
whole AB means simply the possession by the whole of a 
certain quality. In other words, the individuals A and B 
reduce to qualities of the whole — they disappear as indi- 
viduals. And yet this consequence is impossible. For the 
relation of membership in a whole is asymmetrical; in order 
to understand it, therefore, one is driven from the whole to 
the individuals; one has to admit their existence as such. 
Thus the argument against monism from the nature of 
asymmetrical relations can be applied in the case of every 
relation; for each involves, even when symmetrical, the 
asymmetrical relation of the individuals so related to the 
whole which they form through relation. If, however, in 
monadistic fashion, one retains the reality of the individuals, 
while maintaining the sufficiency of the interpretation of the 
relation of membership in a whole in terms of qualities, 
affirming that the relation means simply that the member 
possesses a certain quality and the whole another quality, it 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 239 

is obvious that what one does is equally disastrous — one 
leaves the whole and member disunited, two separate 
individuals, side by side, not one in the other. 

A concrete illustration will perhaps clarify this last argu- 
ment. Suppose the relation to be interpreted is that of father 
to son. This implies the existence of a whole, a family, of 
which the father and son are members. But how interpret 
the relation of membership which they bear to the whole ? 
If we follow out the monistic theory we must affirm that 
membership in the whole means the possession by the whole 
of some quality — is, in fact, a quality of the whole. The 
family becomes the sole individual; the members, mere 
" organs of its spirit.'' If, on the other hand, we perceive 
that this sort of interpretation is mythological, that the 
family is created by its members and does not pre-exist to 
them; then if we would still maintain the sufficiency of the 
interpretation of relations in terms of qualities, we must 
simply affirm that membership in a family means the exist- 
ence of one individual, the family, and the existence of other 
individuals, father and son, each possessing qualities corre- 
sponding to their relationships, and what we reach in the end 
is the separate existence of three individuals, father, son 
and family. 

Russell's 1 own statement of this argument is, I think, not 
flawless. Russell puts the difficulty thus. Suppose you seek 
to interpret ARB as AR{AB). Then you must proceed to 
interpret this new relational situation as A in relation to the 
whole composed of A and AB. But this whole, according to 
1 Op. cit. t sec. 215. 



24O THE SELF AND NATURE 

monism, is not the same as AB. Whence you get AR(A ,AB) . 
But plainly you have your task over again; you are falling 
into the infinite regress. Now the existence of the regress is 
the matter which I doubt. It arises from the supposition 
that the whole composed of A and AB is a different whole 
from AB. Russell believes that all monists are compelled to 
make this supposition; but this, I think, is hardly the truth. 
The two wholes are the same; just as when one class in- 
cludes another, or one extent embraces another, the logical 
sum of the two, part and whole, is the same as the whole. 
It is difficult to see what could be added to or subtracted 
from the whole to make it different, by adding to it one of 
its own parts, already included in the original whole. The 
two wholes are different in the statement, but not in reality. 
Russell supposes that all monists are committed to this 
view because they maintain that the whole is not identical 
with the logical sum of its parts. This, however, is a mis- 
understanding of the ordinary monistic position. When a 
monist says that a whole is not the sum of its parts he means, 
if he has any explicit meaning at all, that when elements 
acquire relationships, and so become involved in a whole, 
they are altered from their original natures, hence are not 
the same in the whole as they were outside of it — the whole 
is not identical with the mere arithmetical sum of the ele- 
ments as they were before they became its members. And 
this seems to me nothing less than a statement of the truth 
— the elements in the whole are not the same as they were 
before they entered it. Yet the whole is the logical sum of its 
own parts, of the elements as they now subsist in it. And 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 24 1 

the relation of whole and member, the relation which we are 
now studying, is not the relation of the elements before they 
were members of the whole, but of the actual elements of the 
actual whole which now includes them. And no monist, to 
my knowledge, ever maintained anything different. The 
attempt, then, to interpret membership in a whole after the 
ordinary monistic fashion does not involve an infinite 
regress; it does involve, however, the consequences which 
were pointed out before — the loss of the individuality of 
the members or else the separation of them from the whole. 
The first alternative is impossible for the reason which 
Russell himself urges — the relation of membership has no 
meaning unless you preserve the individuality of the mem- 
bers, and the last is obviously unreal. These consequences 
vanish, as we shall see, as soon as relation is understood to 
involve the equal reality of individuals and the whole, 
together with the union of the former in the latter. 

So far as I know, no sufficient answer has been made to 
these objections of Russell, and they constitute, in my 
opinion, a perfectly valid proof of the falsity of monism. 

The foregoing critique of theories of relations implies a 
positive theory of our own, which we are now in a position to 
develop. The dependence of our theory on all the views 
which we have rejected will be evident. But this can be 
nothing against our view; for it would be strange if the dif- 
ferent theories did not each contain an element of truth, 
since they have been framed by men with a vast experience 
in the problems at issue and with no other motive than the 
love of truth. 



242 THE SELF AND NATURE 

We must begin our account by declaring the sense in 
which we use the term relation. Relation is used in contem- 
porary logic to denote the class of couples which exemplify 
the relation in question, just as one may use blue to denote 
the class of all blue things. This extensional meaning is 
used by Russell in the formal development of the theory of 
relations. Whatever working advantage it may have, it is 
obviously a secondary meaning; it presupposes, as Russell 
clearly understands, a meaning of relation closely analogous 
to that of class concept, through which an ordinary class of 
things is denned. Indeed, the denning function through 
which a class of couples is created is absolutely correlative 
to the function which defines an ordinary class, the only dif- 
ference being that in the case of relation the function has two 
variables: " x is a <f>," or </> (x), corresponds to " x, y have 
the relation 0," or 6 (x, y). But here <f> and are both uni- 
versal, the one being, say the predicate " blue," the other, 
the relation " precedes." But what I shall mean by relation 
in this discussion will not be a universal, but any concrete in- 
stance of a universal. Just as I may use the concept " blue " 
to denote the concrete quality of a real thing, like the sky, so 
I may use the concept " precedes " to denote the concrete 
precedence of A when compared with B, A and B being 
real men. 

Right here, however, I am involved in controversy. Rus- 
sell maintains that all relations are universals, that every 
relation is precisely and numerically the same in all cases of 
relation, that, in fact, there are no instances of relation. 
Before examining Russell's arguments, I will state certain 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 243 

reasons which lie close at hand to render it improbable. In 
the first place, the notion of a universal without instances is 
so strange as immediately to excite suspicion. One is familiar 
with the denial of the existence of universals and the attempt 
to reduce them to the multitude of their instances ; but the 
existence of a universal without instances would be an 
unparalleled phenomenon. And, empirically, it seems plain 
that a relation is just as much differentiated by the pairs of 
elements between which it holds as a sense quality is indi- 
vidualized by the different individual things which are 
characterized by it. If the green of one leaf is not numeri- 
cally the same green as that of another leaf, so the relation 
of ruler to subject in England is a different relation from 
that which holds in Germany, and even the royal relation 
to one man in England is not the same as to another man — 
not the same, for example, to Asquith as to Balfour. Every 
relation between unique pairs of terms is a unique relation, 
which of course does not prevent its being an instance of 
some universal. 

The argument of Russell x is based on the analysis of the 
relation of difference, where the relation does not denote 
difference of quality, but bare numerical difference, in virtue 
of which individuals are two; that is, it is the relation that 
would hold even between precisely similar things. The 
argument is this: " even if differences did differ they would 
still have to have something in common. But the most 
general way for two terms to have something in common is 
by both having a given relation to a given term. Hence if no 

1 The Principles of Mathematics, sec. 55. 



244 THE SELF AND NATURE 

two terms can have the same relation it follows that no two 
terms can have anything in common, and hence different 
differences will not be in any definable sense instances of 
difference. I conclude then that the relation affirmed be- 
tween A and B in the proposition ' A differs from B ' is the 
general relation of difference, and is precisely and numeri- 
cally the same as the relation affirmed between C and D in 
' C differs from D.' And for the same reasons this doctrine 
must be held to be true of all relations ; relations do not have 
instances, but are strictly the same in all propositions in 
which they occur." In a note Russell indicates the real point 
of this argument: " the relation of an instance to its uni- 
versal, at any rate, must be actually and numerically the 
same in all cases in which it occurs." 

This argument plainly rests on the definition given of 
similarity. But this definition does not, I think, involve the 
consequences which Russell draws from it. Two terms are 
indeed similar or have something in common when the same 
universal is related to each in whatever way one may ex- 
press the relation of the universal to the particular. But 
why does this definition involve that the relation in question 
should be precisely and numerically the same ? Is it not 
sufficient that they be two relations of the same type ? That 
is, that they be both relations of an individual to the uni- 
versal in question ? Now to this Russell of course objects 
that in referring to relations as being of the same type, one 
is making a circular definition; for to be of the same type 
means nothing else than to be similar. We raise here one of 
the most difficult and debatable problems of the recent 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 245 

development of logic. But it seems as if Russell's own 
latest theory, that of Principia Mathematica, the so-called 
theory of types, permits us to show how this seeming circu- 
larity is only seeming. For it is impossible to give a defini- 
tion of similarity that should cover all cases. The similarity 
of two individuals is on a different plane from the similarity 
of two relations. Two terms are similar, if they possess 
similar relations to a given term, in particular, to a given 
universal; two relations are similar, if they possess similar 
relations to their universal. These definitions are not circu- 
lar or tautologous because the similarity of individuals is 
different from the similarity of relations, and the similarity 
of relations of relations is again different from both. The 
paradox and the infinite regress involved here are precisely 
the same as in the well-known case of the class of all classes, 
and they are solved in precisely the same way; in the case 
just cited, the solution being the recognition that a class of 
classes is not an ordinary class and cannot be treated as one. 
The whole doctrine of types is indeed a recognition of what 
Hegel so strongly insisted upon : the inseparability of same- 
ness and difference. Relations are always the same when 
they belong to the same universal, but they are also and 
indefeasibly different in so far as they hold between different 
individuals. 

From this discussion I therefore conclude that there is no 
reason for believing that relations are universals without 
instances, and hence that in every case of relation a unique, 
that is, an individual concrete relation is involved. It is with 
these and not with the corresponding universals that we 



246 THE SELF AND NATURE 

shall be concerned here. Let us now proceed to the syste- 
matic interpretation of relations. 

First, whenever there is a relation between individuals a 
specific character is conferred on each by the relationship; 
or, more accurately, part of the meaning of being related is 
always the possession of certain characters, which we shall 
call relative or acquired characters. Thus part of the mean- 
ing of " A is predecessor of B " is " A is (predecessor-of- 
B) " and " B is (successor-of-^4)." These propositions, as 
Russell points out, are directly involved in the original 
statement. The very linguistic form of the proposition per- 
mits of this analysis; the entire latter part of the proposi- 
tion is predicated of the earlier term of the relation, which 
may properly be called its subject. Every concrete case 
of relationship is an illustration of this fact. As we have 
already observed, social relations are the most obvious 
instances. To be father of means in part to possess certain 
characters correlative with others involved in being a son. 
This aspect of the meaning of relationship is rightly insisted 
on by the monadists; but they go astray, as we have seen, 
because they seek to reduce the whole meaning to it. 

But now, although in all cases of relation the presence of 
such acquired characters is involved, it is equally clear that 
the nature of the individuals related cannot be equated to 
these characters. In all cases some non-relational characters 
render the individuals independent, in part, of other individ- 
uals and of relations. The concrete situations of our experi- 
ence bear this out. Let us examine several of these. Take 
the case of one thing being larger than another. What we 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 247 

call the size of a thing is certainly not independent of com- 
parison with other things. It is well known that our con- 
ception, nay, even our perception of size, is the result of 
numberless comparisons, that is, relations. Yet, even so. we 
must admit a purely qualitative aspect of bigness, spread- 
outness, voluminousness. Or take the case of one thing 
which is predecessor of another. It is always richer than 
this relationship. It derives part of its nature from it, yet 
surely not all. You can destroy the relation or give it the 
converse — make it successor — and it will still be in part 
what it was before. We find in every case that comes to our 
experience that related elements are not wholly made by the 
relations into which they are seen to enter. And we have no 
reason for supposing that this has been different in the past. 
Into the making of every element the contact of other ele- 
ments in relation has entered ; but in every case the element 
has started with a nature not yet made by the relationship. 
Go back as far as you will in the process of the making of 
anything you know, you will always find alongside of the 
acquired, relative, or dependent, the native, original, or 
spontaneous. 

There is, to put the matter in another way, some truth in 
the view of relations as " external. " A consideration of the 
various sense qualities enforces this most clearly. Take 
colors, for example. The quality of each color is certainly 
not unaffected by its juxtaposition with other colors, upon 
which its significance for feeling strictly depends, as every 
student of pictorial art understands, yet if, without ever 
having seen color before, one were to open one's eyes upon 



248 THE SELF AND NATURE 

the blue of the sky, surely a distinct and specific quale would 
enter into experience. And if you put a color and a tone 
together in experience, you certainly do recreate the nature 
of each; yet in so far as one item is still color and the other 
sound, there has remained an aboriginal essence not made 
by the relationship. Of course it will be objected that color 
depends upon relation to eye and stimulus. But do we know 
enough about this relation to show that the quality depends 
wholly upon it ? But suppose we knew all the relations of 
each thing, would there remain any aspect of individuality 
not made by these relationships ? I see no reason for think- 
ing that the real situation is other than what we find it to be 
in our experience. We find a multitude of related elements. 
Each has a nature. When we study these natures we find 
that they are for the most part relative. The more we study 
the more relativity we discern. Yet we never discover 
complete relativity. 

The possession of acquired or relative characters by indi- 
viduals is thus an essential part of the fact of relation. That 
it is not the whole of this fact is clear from the criticism of 
monadism. There is at least the further fact of unity which 
monadism, as we have seen, denies. The necessity for unity 
emerges, however, from all those considerations which prove 
the insufficiency of that doctrine. Mutual modification, the 
acquirement of new characters, is dependent on unity and 
inexplicable apart from it. The situation ARB means not 
only that A is predecessor and B is follower, but that the two 
elements are in union with one another. Without union how 
could the one be predecessor of, and the other follower of,. 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 249 

the other ? Relative characters conceived to belong to a 
separate individual are only partially meaningful; in order 
to complete their meaning it is necessary to have recourse to 
the other individual of the relationship; their presence in 
one individual implies its union with the other. To take 
another illustration. If A is greater than B, why of course 
A has the property of being greater and B has that of being 
less. But A is not merely greater, but greater than, and B is 
not only less, but less than. Individuals cannot be greater or 
less unto themselves ; they are greater and less with definite 
reference to other individuals, in union with them. Again, 
the fact that A is father of B means the possession by A of 
certain characters, certain sentiments and purposes. But 
A is not a mere father; he is father of B. This implies union 
of A and B. To say that unity is subjective is to involve 
oneself in the absurdities already recounted. It is as objec- 
tive as the existence of A and his relative characters. Apart 
from its union with other things, an individual has only its 
native characters. Thus apart from union with B, A has 
bigness, but is not greater than ; or A is a point, but is not 
before B; or A is a man, but is not a father. In our discus- 
sion of monadism the necessity for unity was proved with 
especial force for the relations of time, cause and knowledge. 
On the other hand, the theory that relations are ultimate 
facts is an overemphasis of unity as a necessary aspect of re- 
lation. Because of the unity which they imply, you cannot 
reduce relations to qualities of the related individuals. Yet 
you cannot treat relation as something over and above the 
relative characters of individuals and their unity. Just as 



250 THE SELF AND NATURE 

soon as you do this you begin to treat relation as itself an in- 
dividual and then you fall into all the difficulties which we 
recounted in our critique of Russell's view. Russell 1 himself 
raises the most important of these when he asks, what 
serves to unite A and R and B in the proposition ARB ? He 
answers, a certain unity, indefinable and unanalyzable, 
which distinguishes ARB from A and R and B. But clearly 
this statement of the situation is redundant. Relation and 
unity are not two facts; unity is one aspect of the complex 
fact, relation. There is no reason for asking what unites A 
and B in the proposition ARB, for R itself does this. The 
unity of A and B is given in their being related. You cannot 
demand the unity of A and R and B, because R is not another 
fact besides A and B, but just that unity which you are 
seeking between them. Relations are modes of unification of 
elements, not further elements demanding unification. 
Despite the countenance which linguistic usage may seem to 
give to the view, relations have not — to use the language of 
Leibnitz — one foot in one individual, another foot in the 
other, with a part stretching between. Relations are not 
thus suspended in the air; they are supported throughout 
their whole length; there is no part of them which does not 
belong somewhere. They are neither divided up among the 
terms, as Leibnitz thought, or suspended between them, as 
Russell would have us believe, but characters of the terms 
when united. We should not think of the unity which rela- 
tion involves as a link or a tie or as glue, as a thing which 
externally affixes itself to elements and thus unites them. 

1 Op. cit., par. 54. 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 25 1 

We should think of relations as rather running through 
terms, as embedded in them, or as threads upon which they 
are strung; or if we cannot help thinking of them as bonds, 
we should picture them as so tight that they cut into the 
flesh and leave no space between. 

A couple of illustrations will illumine this discussion 
immediately. Suppose some impulse or passion contends 
with a principle in the mind of a man. The struggle of the 
two is what we should call their relation. Yet if we examine 
the concrete reality before us we shall not find that this re- 
lation has any existence alongside of the two forces; it is 
rather a character of each in its connection with the other; 
it is that which makes them contending rather than peaceful 
forces. Again, if A is greater than B, greater than does not 
exist alongside of A and B\ it is a character which A pos- 
sesses in its togetherness with B when we compare them. 
You cannot find it anywhere between them; its whole self 
is distributed among them — as greater than, a character of 
A, and as less than, a character of B — in their union. The 
feeling of relation of which James speaks is a quality of 
elements in their union, not an independent something 
alongside of them. Relations have a peculiar instability. 
They are certainly not individuals; they are too secondary 
to individuals and too unsubstantial. Yet they are with 
equal certainty not mere adjectives of terms. They are 
something more than each taken singly; they embrace and 
unite them, giving color to each. 

Of course in so far as we recognize unity as a fundamental 
category, we agree with Russell in denying the sufficiency of 



252 THE SELF AND NATURE 

the notions of individual and quality for the description of 
reality. Yet this does not imply that we regard the notion 
of relation as unanalyzable. Unity is irreducible, but not 
relation. Relation is a complex concept susceptible of just 
the analysis which we are giving of it. The reality of unity 
I take to be unmistakable for two reasons: the failure to 
dispense with it in any attempt to describe reality — a 
failure which we have, I hope, abundantly proved; and the 
immediate evidence which experience itself offers of its pres- 
ence. I find, for example, the unity of intensity and hue in 
any color, or the unity of various extents of space in a 
larger whole of space, just as surely as I find these extents 
or qualities themselves. 

A further fact which is involved in the existence of rela- 
tions is this : wherever there is a relation there is an individ- 
ual of higher order of which they are members. Consider 
ARB. The situation not only involves the possession by A 
and B of certain properties, called by us relative properties, 
and the unity of A and B, but also the existence of an in- 
dividual of higher order, which is neither A nor B, but the 
couple, the order which they form through their unity. This 
new individual possesses properties which neither of its 
members can claim as its own — it is a couple, an order, with 
sense or direction. Consider some other illustrations. Take 
a line in space. The elements of the line have relations of 
distance and order; together they constitute a new individ- 
ual, the line, with properties certainly not possessed by any 
point — it is dense, continuous and of such and such a length. 
Or consider a family: it has a social status not possessed by 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 253 

its individual members. An army has a strength and array 
which is not possessed by any single man. A color scheme 
has a unity and an emotional significance which cannot be 
predicated of any single color. The converse of this is, of 
course, also true. The elements of the whole have severally 
properties not possessed by the whole. The single colors in 
the picture have hue, but the picture has none; the men in 
the army are conscious, not so the latter; the side of the tri- 
angle has length, the triangle only area. 

This last point represents the modicum of truth in the 
monistic theory. That theory is, however, wrong in the con- 
clusions which it draws as to the relation of the individual to 
the whole of which it becomes a member through relation. 
The monistic theory supposes that the whole completely 
determines the character of the members. This view of the 
situation rests on the supposition that the individual is, in 
every case, made by the relations into which it enters. But, 
as we know, this making of the individual by relation is only 
partial — it applies only to the acquired properties of the 
individual, the original qualities are not thus made. And 
far from it being true that the whole completely determines 
the nature of the individual, it is rather true conversely that 
the individuals determine the nature of the wholes which 
they form. As we have seen, you cannot impose all relations 
upon all individuals. The sort of relation which one thing 
bears to another, and so the sort of whole which they com- 
pose, flows from the nature of the things themselves. An 
appeal to illustrations makes this convincing. Social rela- 
tions have their bases in the instincts and mental faculties of 



254 THE S ELF AND NATURE 

individuals. Of course it is true that relationships once 
established modify instinct and mental faculty. I do not 
mean to argue that individuals are ever isolated, ever free 
from allegiance to some whole. What I am contending for 
is this : when we watch the genesis of new relations, of larger 
individualities — and the world process consists very largely 
of just this — we perceive that they are established from 
below in the first instance, that they grow out of the natures 
of the elements which are to compose them. To be sure, as 
the relation becomes established, the individuals undergo 
modification, and they have already owed part of their 
natures to the wholes of which they were members; for 
every new whole grows out of the bosom of some old whole; 
but the new whole does not pre-exist to its members, deter- 
mining them ; rather they, with the spirit of adventure upon 
them, go forth to create it, which only then comes into 
being. A study of the more abstract relations confirms this 
view. Equality of size changes to inequality through the 
expansion or contraction of either one of the quanta so 
related. The new relation grows from within, springing 
from the nature of the terms of the old relation, it does 
not grow from without, imposed by the new one. Just so, 
likeness may become unlikeness, and vice versa. 

That the whole cannot tyrannize over the parts Russell 
has conclusively proved from the nature of asymmetrical 
relations. Suppose we consider the simplest case of asymme- 
try, when the relation is dyadic, as in our illustration, A 
precedes B. Then, in accordance with our interpretation of 
relation as we have so far developed it, there must exist a 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 255 

whole formed by the related elements, possessed of a char- 
acter of its own, and each of the elements must possess 
acquired as well as original characters. The whole, to use 
the language of Frege, is a " couple with sense." But how 
can you determine its sense or direction ? Not by a mere 
regard of the whole AB; for this whole, as whole, is per- 
fectly symmetrical with reference to A and B; whether 
ARB or BRA is entirely indeterminate. Only when, as we 
have seen, you take some one element in the whole as 
starting point or base and regard both from its point of 
view, going from the one to the other, can the asymmetry be 
determined. Hence the sense of the couple, its nature so far 
at least as this character is concerned, is dependent on the 
parts. And that the choice of a base is not arbitrary, and 
so not without clear metaphysical significance, is proved 
by the cases of irreversible asymmetry. Temporal and tele- 
ological relations — among the most significant of all — 
are the most striking instances. You may survey the time 
sequence forwards or backwards, but you cannot grow 
either way. You may look back from the goal to the plan, 
but you cannot act in that way according to your choice; 
your choice is determined for you by the nature of things. 
Even if the choice of a base were always arbitrary, the 
point for which we are contending would be proved. For 
a world which left choices free, which made arbitrary 
decisions possible, would not be one which absolutely 
predetermined everything. 

We have used Russell's argument from asymmetrical rela- 
tions at this point for its bearing on individuality, but Rus- 



256 THE SELF AND NATURE 

sell himself uses it, as we have seen, to refute the monistic 
reduction of relation to quality of the whole formed by the 
related elements. Now, despite the insufficiency of this 
view, it nevertheless possesses the modicum of truth which 
we have indicated, and it is incumbent upon us to show that 
asymmetrical relations offer no difficulties. The proof con- 
sists in demonstrating that the whole formed of the related 
elements, when the relation in question is asymmetrical, 
possesses the predicate which we call sense or direction, and 
not the elements taken singly. That this is true is clear from 
the following examples. If A precedes B, we have a couple 
with sense, if notes are one before another in time, they form 
a melody, if a man goes from one point to another, the class 
of points over which he travels constitute a path with direc- 
tion, and in every case the sense or direction — that upon 
which Russell lays so much stress — belongs to the whole 
made by the elements and not to any one of them. A single 
element cannot have direction. It is of course true, as we 
have seen at length, that the sense of the relation is deter- 
mined by the elements of the whole ; but this fact does not 
dislodge it from the place where we have put it; for, al- 
though its nature is determined by the elements, it is none 
the less, after it has been constituted, a character of the 
whole and not of the elements. The direction of a melody or 
a journey is determined by the starting point, yet does not 
belong to any one of the individual elements, whether first, 
last or intermediate, nor does it subsist as a further element 
between them, but characterizes the whole, the melody, the 
journey. 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 257 

Every extreme form of monism, issuing in the theory that 
individuality is an illusion, that distinctions are only artifi- 
cial, is untenable. The monists are right in their contention 
that the whole is the first thing in knowledge, but wrong 
when they go on to affirm as a consequence of this that the 
individuals which make up the whole are unreal. Sometimes 
this contention is supported on a priori grounds, sometimes 
on grounds more empirical. It may be argued, 1 for example, 
that in proceeding to the elements of the whole, singling 
them out, designating them with names, one necessarily 
wrenches them from the whole in which they belong, and so, 
after all, gets nothing quite real, but only something arti- 
ficially constructed. I cannot see, however, that this argu- 
ment is cogent. It rests on a queer way of interpreting 
analysis after the analogy of dissection, as if the process of 
thought were a real dismemberment of things. Thinking is 
not cutting; it is discovery; and in discovering the elements 
of a whole, I leave them there; I do not even think of them 
as existing apart from the whole; I simply become more 
vividly aware of them in the whole. Moreover, it is per- 
fectly possible to be aware of a whole and of its elements at 
once. When I perceive a couple of stakes in an order, I can 
be aware at once of the two as a group and of each one in its 
individuality. And when, for some purpose, I become exclu- 
sively attentive to the elements and neglect the whole, I do 
not effect any real dismemberment of it ; I do not take the 
elements out of it and so destroy both; I go to them, they 
do not come out to me. Instead of supposing that individ- 

1 Both Bergson and Bradley afford abundant examples of this. 



258 THE SELF AND NATURE 

uals are constructed by us, we ought to perceive that the 
world presents them to us. Our fellow men are such individ- 
uals. To be sure, the fellow man comes to us as living and 
breathing in the larger whole of nature which surrounds and 
supports him; yet in that whole he stands out as a true 
unity, a real individual. 

The fact that everything of which we have experience is 
not only itself a whole of lesser elements, but also a member 
of a larger whole, itself possessed of the same formal struc- 
ture, proves only that this too is an individual, an individual 
not of lower, but of higher order. In the end we never find 
anything else in nature except individuals. The fact that all 
the individuals we find are members of individuals of higher 
order and contain individuals of lower order does not prove 
the unreality of individuality; but simply its omnipresence. 
Nevertheless, I imagine that just this involution of individ- 
uals one in another has led to the fallacy which we are 
exposing. A world which is nothing except a system of 
individuals may seem not to possess any individuals at all; 
being omnipresent like the atmosphere, they may seem to 
be non-existent. 

In concluding this discussion I wish to examine certain 
objections to our account of relations, and other difficulties, 
which it may be held to share with the doctrines rejected. 

First, if relations have no more of independent reality 
than we have ascribed to them, and if wholes are determined 
through elements, how does it happen, one might ask, that 
the same individuals can create different wholes ? It would 
seem as if, in order to explain this difference, one would be 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 259 

compelled to have recourse to arrangement, plan, order — 
to relation, in short — as an independent factor. Out of the 
same blocks, according to the relations in which he disposes 
them, a child can build many different houses. Of them- 
selves, it would seem, elements cannot form wholes; but out 
of even a very few elements, by means of different relations, 
numberless various compositions can be evolved. In all 
building, in addition to materials, I need a form or plan. 

To this the reply is as follows : Although new wholes are 
usually made after the pattern of old ones, this does not 
imply that the patterns of the old are efficient as independ- 
ent facts in the making of the new. The form is effective in 
shaping the material only through the artist in whom the 
architectural conception exists; in itself, the form is power- 
less. When new wholes spring from old ones, they depend for 
their nature on the relational characters of the latter, as 
when a child grows from its parents' bodies; but the form is 
effective only as a property of these complex individuals. 
Moreover, the fact that one can make different wholes out 
of the same individuals by ordering them differently does 
not imply any more ultimate reality in order than we have 
ascribed to it. For identical elements cannot in themselves 
create different wholes. By themselves, for example, the 
blocks cannot assume various patterns; they can only take 
on the one which is in the mind of the child. We had for- 
gotten the child as a factor in the creative process. And 
when the child makes another pattern, he is not exactly the 
same as he was before; for he is at least so far different as to 
have a different plan. When we think of the blocks as falling 



260 THE SELF AND NATURE 

of themselves into any pattern we forget their actual physi- 
cal constitution and relations. Materials are indifferent to 
various forms in the sense that they can assume different 
forms under different conditions; but the conditions are of 
the utmost importance. Two artists can make different 
shapes out of the same clay, but the clay cannot of itself 
assume different shapes. The relation, the plan, is a factor 
in the making of new wholes, not however as an independent 
existence, but only as a character of another pre-existing 
whole. The Aristotelian statement of the situation is final. 

Wholes, we conclude, spring from the elements which 
compose them; the character of the wholes, the relations 
into which the elements are to fall, is determined by the 
nature of the elements themselves, always, however, after 
the pattern of some old whole to which the elements belong. 
Familiar illustrations of new relations, that is, of new wholes, 
springing from the elements which are to compose them are 
the marriage, business organizations, societies and clubs of 
human individuals. The relations involved in all these cases 
are not metaphysically independent entities; for the individ- 
uals which enter into the new wholes and the old ones which 
supply the type are the sufficient agents in the process of 
formation. 

Second, there is the difficulty involved in the distinction 
which we have made between the original and relative quali- 
ties of an individual. Every individual, we saw, owes some 
of its qualities to its union with other individuals; yet not 
all; there are, in addition, some which are native to the 
thing itself. But now, when we consider these qualities of 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 26 1 

individuals are we not confronted with the same problem 
over again ? For every time, for example, that an individual 
entered into a new relationship it would acquire a new 
quality, which would therefore enter into relation with those 
already possessed by the thing. The problem of relation 
would simply be shifted from between individuals to be- 
tween qualities within each individual, and there the same 
distinction would have to be drawn over again between an 
original and an acquired aspect of the qualities in question; 
for by being brought into relation with each other the quali- 
ties would undergo mutual modification. Since everything 
exists both on account of itself and on account of other 
things, there would be a part of the thing which would 
remain the same before the entrance into the new relation- 
ship and another part which would be different. Call the 
one A and the other B. But these two parts would be in 
relation; hence they would modify each other. Yet, as in 
the case of the individual, you could distinguish part as the 
same and part as different — in A for example, C and D. 
But clearly this would involve once more the same problem 
of the relation between the original and the acquired, only 
this time within a quality of the individual. Again the prob- 
lem is shifted — from between individuals to between quali- 
ties, then within the single qualities. Obviously an infinite 
regress is commencing, and our individual, which seemed 
simple enough at first, is becoming infinitely complex. 

Royce here, 1 as in a previous case, accepts the infinite 
regress as harmless and the infinite complexity of each 

1 The World and the Individual. Supplementary Essay. See page 227. 



262 THE SELF AND NATURE 

individual as no more than just the truth about the con- 
stitution of everything. The regress arises, he says, in the 
attempt to determine the self identity or uniqueness or in- 
dividuality of a thing in contradistinction from that aspect 
of its nature which it owns as a result of its relations. We 
have been seeking to get the individuality pure; but, as a 
fact, it is never pure. The original and the acquired are 
always intertwined. The purely original is a limit in the 
mathematical sense, to which we may approach indefinitely 
by an endless process of making distinctions between what a 
thing is as an individual and what it is as related, but which 
we can never reach. This solution of the difficulty, although 
it contains a certain amount of truth, as we shall see directly, 
is nevertheless subject to the same defect as that which 
affected Russell's dealing with the problem of the infinity of 
relations between an individual and its relations to other 
things — it accepts as real a complexity in the individual far 
beyond anything given in our experience. 

A similar difficulty arises when we consider any whole 
formed through the union of individuals. Wherever there 
are relations between individuals, we have seen, there is a 
whole which possesses properties not possessed by any of its 
elements. But what of these properties ? Since they all 
belong to a certain whole, it would seem as if they must be 
united in that whole, and there be subject to manifold rela- 
tions between each other. And among these related proper- 
ties, the same distinction would have to be drawn between 
what they are in themselves and what they are through 
their relations to each other, and the same apparent problem 
of the infinite met. 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 263 

The solution of the difficulty is, I think, within our reach. 
The difficulty arose from the effort to separate out the 
original and the acquired properties of related things, or 
what comes to the same, to mark off the identity from the 
difference in things which change and acquire new relation- 
ships. But you cannot make this separation; for the two 
interpenetrate, and the give and take between them is again 
not of something which exists alongside of each, but is just 
the very nature of each. 

For example, consider the illustration which we have 
already used. Through some new relation to the public, a 
man's thought of himself becomes tinged with pride. His 
thought of himself becomes a proud thought. We can now 
distinguish, if we will, the two aspects in his new state of 
mind — that of pride and that of thought; and it is true 
that the pride and the thought are united with one another, 
and that there is a mutual influence of one on the other. 
But this union does not involve a new complexity and a new 
problem of relation. The thought in relation to pride be- 
comes a new quality, a richer quality; but what it takes on 
is not something other than itself and other than pride ; it 
becomes a proud thought; and the pride does not acquire 
something different from thought; it becomes simply pride 
of this thought. When, as happens here, and generally 
whenever the qualities of things are modified through rela- 
tion to other things, the mutual modification consists in 
each quality taking on the nature of the other; there is no 
new complexity of relationship developed in each, but a 
simple fusion of the two into a total quality. The infinite 



264 THE SELF AND NATURE 

regress, of which Bradley makes so much, develops through 
the supposition that when an element is modified through 
relationship you can find one part which remains the same 
despite the relation and another part which is the increment 
of difference created through this relationship. The man is 
the same as he was before the new honor, and of course he is 
/ also different, so you want to separate the sameness from the 
difference. You want to find the thought as it was originally, 
and then, alongside of it, the difference which was made to it 
through its relation to pride. But, I say, the thought is the 
same in being thought and different in being proud thought. 
And if you persist and ask, Is there not in the thought itself 
some part which is just thought and some other part which 
is the ingredient of pride ? I answer, There is none ; there 
is not the slightest part of the thought which is not per- 
meated with pride; there is no part which is not at once the 
same and different. It is impossible to separate the sameness 
from the difference, to get the sameness pure and the 
difference pure. 

The principle just employed to solve the problem of the 
relation between the qualities of related individuals serves 
to solve the similar problem of the relation of the qualities- 
of the whole formed by these individuals. For there, too, the 
qualities come into relation with and modify one another. 
But the interrelation of qualities of a whole involves the 
same type of unity as the interrelation of qualities of an 
individual in the whole. There also the qualities modify one 
another, but through participation, not through a creation 
of new qualities, so that no further complexity is involved, 
least of all an infinite regress. 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 265 

The recognition of interpenetration as a special type of 
unity throws much light upon the definition of the individ- 
ual and its distinction from quality. An individual is usually 
defined as something which can exist by itself. But since it 
is impossible wholly to isolate anything, we should never 
know, if this definition were true, whether anything were an 
individual or not. Moreover, since individuals derive their 
relative characters from other individuals, the statement 
cannot be exact. We cannot take the individual out of the 
universe, and so we cannot define it as if we could. However, 
starting with the given whole, we may define the individual 
as something which can be found separate from the rest of 
the whole. This does not mean that the individual could 
exist out of the whole, but that one does not find the whole 
or any other part of the whole when one finds a given 
individual. For example, I can find the panel of the door 
without finding the knob, although both belong to the one 
whole of space. It might seem as if there were a limit to 
this; for the relative characters of an individual cannot be 
known without a knowledge of other individuals with which 
the former stands in relation. I cannot know that A is 
greater than B, unless I know B as well as A. Yet this is 
really no objection; for the knowledge of B is not a finding 
of A in B, but an inference from the relative characters of 
A to the correlative characters of B. An individual, then, is 
not something which could exist by itself apart from the 
whole, but something which can be found separate from 
other elements in the whole, and does not derive all its 
characters from them. 



266 THE SELF AND NATURE 

Next, what is the definition of quality in distinction from 
individual ? There are two things to consider here — the 
qualities of individuals and the qualities of the wholes in 
which individuals exist. An individual is a union of quali- 
ties. The Aristotelian tradition has it that an individual is 
something besides its qualities, their subject or bearer, but 
this entity is certainly not empirical or real. The qualities in 
their unity are the thing which owns any one of them and to 
which any one of them may be attributed. The notion of 
subject served two purposes : it made possible the identity 
or persistence of the individual despite change; it served to 
distinguish the individual from the universal. How identity 
and difference, permanence and change can be conceived as 
co-existing in the thing without the notion of a substrate, we 
have already discovered in our studies of time and the self. 
The need of the subject to provide for the uniqueness of the 
thing sprang, I think, from a misconception of qualities 
rooted in the pla tonic philosophy. Qualities were thought 
of as universals; hence, since the individual is a unity of 
qualities, it too, without something to guarantee its partic- 
ularity, would have become a universal, an idea. But the 
qualities of things must not be confounded with the abstract 
ideas or concepts used in the description of things. The blue 
which I see in the sky is a concrete quale, not the universal 
blueness. Qualities do not have to be made unique through 
attachment to a subject; they are given each unique. 
Everything which can be distinguished in the existing world 
is already unique and individual in the sense of not being 
universal. 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 267 

But, if this is true, why not say that an individual is a 
quality and that a quality is an individual ? Individuals can 
unite into individuals of higher order — are not qualities in 
exactly the same case — what we call an individual being 
really a complex individual composed of lesser individuals, 
qualia? The difference is this : the qualities of an individ- 
ual are all involved in one another, and it is impossible for 
any one of them to exist separate from the rest, that is, 
separate from the thing of which, we say, it is a quality. For 
example, a bit of blue in the sky is an individual; for when 
you find it, you do not find that other bit of sky to the right, 
which is also an individual in the same whole of space; the 
two are united, yet they are not involved in one another. 
But the hue and the intensity of the first bit of sky are not 
individuals; for you cannot find the one separate from the 
other; they are fused, intertwined. And whereas individ- 
uals — qualities in their fusion — can exist when other 
individuals in the same whole disintegrate and the whole is 
broken up; no single quality can exist by itself apart from 
others, that is, apart from the individual. You cannot 
find, for example, the intensity of the blue by itself unfused 
with hue and spreadoutness. 

The distinction between quality and individual depends 
therefore upon the distinction between two types of unity: 
one, in which the things united are fused in one another; 
the other, in which the united elements retain their separate 
existence. The one is the type of union of qualities; the 
other is the type of union of individuals. Qualities unite 
and form individuals and are lost in one another; individuals 



268 THE SELF AND NATURE 

unite and form wholes and are outside of one another. A 
quality in its union with another quality in the thing takes 
on the other quality as its own; but an individual in its 
union with another in an individual of higher order, al- 
though modified by that other, does not assimilate its 
characteristics. Thus, when a man and woman marry, each 
is modified by the relationship; yet this does not involve 
the feminization of the man and the virilizing of the woman ; 
the modification consists rather in making the one more 
masculine and the other more feminine. It involves adjust- 
ment to one another, not fusion of one another. Within the 
individual, however, the union of qualities involves a taking 
on by the one of the other — the blue becomes extended, the 
extensity becomes a blue extensity. 

Failure to distinguish these two types of unity, or, what 
comes to the same, failure to distinguish qualities from 
individuals, is characteristic of all mystical types of monism. 
For there individuals are reduced to qualities of the whole 
which they form through relation; whence it follows that 
they must participate in one another just as the qualities of 
an individual do. Since all things are related to all things, 
the result is the doctrine of universal compenetration — 
each in all and all in each. The clearest evidence against 
this view, as we have already seen, is afforded by asymmet- 
rical relations. For there the adjustment to one another 
which follows upon the relation of the terms to one another 
is specifically not the acquirement of anything which would 
eliminate difference and distinction, but the reverse; for 
example, one becomes a predecessor, the other a successor, 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 269 

one a father, the other a son. There is a greater differentia- 
tion between father and son than between the former and 
another boy to whom he is not related. A man in his rela- 
tion to his wife is a far more highly differentiated creature 
than he is in his simpler relations to other women. Relation 
is therefore not so much a source of identity as of difference, 
of richness. Another clear case of union without interfusion 
is that of the parts of space into larger wholes of space. 
Here the whole is indubitable; yet the parts are not fused 
in one another; for each can be found separate. Moreover, 
the sort of relation and wholeness which they possess de- 
mands this very separation. Even contiguous elements do 
not have towards each other the type of relation possessed 
by qualities of an individual, such as have, for example, the 
hue and intensity of a color. If they had, since all elements 
in space are mediately in contact with any one of them, 
they would all flow together into one — would all reduce to 
a single point. Here the union, along with the preservation 
of the distinctness of the individuals united, is a plain fact 
of observation. 

The recognition of unity as an indispensable aspect of the 
meaning of relation, together with the recognition of two 
kinds of unity, solves the third and last of the problems 
which we confronted on the way to the development of our 
own view. 1 The problem was one which monism had to 
face, but there are certain elements of it which exist for us 
also. They are as follows: Take any case of relationship 
between A and B, which we symbolize by A RB. This means, 

1 See above, pages 237-241. 



270 THE SELF AND NATURE 

in terms of our interpretation, that A and B exist each with 
its original and acquired characters, and that also some 
whole exists, which we designate as AB. But now, since A 
and B are elements in this whole, there must be a relation 
between each one of them and it, in addition to their rela- 
tion to each other. The existence of this new relation in- 
volves, of course, the existence of another property of AB, 
and also further relational properties in A and in B. The 
existence of these properties causes us no difficulty; for they 
fuse simply, in the fashion already explained, with the other 
properties. But there was another difficulty in the situation : 
the choice between the loss of the individuality of the 
members and the separation of them from the whole. The 
first, as we saw, was impossible, owing to the asymmetry of 
the relation of membership in a whole, which is impossible 
without the individuality of the parties to the relationship, 
and the second is obviously impossible. Now, despite the 
fact that, with monism, we recognize the existence of the 
whole AB, we are saved from the former alternative through 
our equal recognition of the individuality of A and B, and 
from the latter alternative, through our insistence on the 
unity of A and B and of each with AB. The relation of A to 
AB does not reduce to a mere quality of AB, because the 
relation involves the distinctive existence of A ; and, since 
unity is an indispensable aspect of the meaning of being 
related, A does not fall outside of AB, for, in being united 
with both B and AB, it necessarily falls within the whole 
AB. Moreover, keeping in mind the two kinds of union 
which we have come to recognize, we see that, although the 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 2JI 

relational properties accruing to the whole through their 
relations with their members are lost in one another, A and 
B are not lost in the whole, because both they and the whole 
are individuals, and hence united with one another in a 
different fashion — externally and by contact, not by fusion. 
We may summarize the results of this chapter as follows : 
i. A relation cannot be reduced to its terms; yet no rela- 
tions can exist without terms and no unrelated individuals 
exist. 

2. Relation implies union of the individuals between 
which it holds in a whole or individual of higher order. The 
unity of individuals implied by relation is ultimate and 
irreducible. 

3. Individuals as members of wholes — as terms in rela- 
tion — acquire certain characters which are lost when the 
wholes in question are broken up. These characters we 
have called acquired or relative. 

4. In addition to these characters, each term possesses 
others, called by us original or native, which do not depend 
upon the wholes into which it enters. 

5. The nature of the wholes into which an individual 
enters — or the nature of the relation which unites it with 
other individuals, the direction or sense of the relation in 
particular and the consequent position of the individual in 
the whole, are determined by the original natures of the 
individuals concerned. 

6. In any individual the original and the acquired char- 
acters are distinguishable in thought, but in reality fused. 
The element is at once individual and relative — the " re- 



272 THE SELF AND NATURE 

spects " can be distinguished, but neither is a substance 
existing separate. 

7. The acquirement of a new relation by an individual 
involves a new aspect, yet despite this change, the individual 
retains identity. It is at once the same and different. Here 
again the aspects can be distinguished — how the individual 
is the same and how different; but there is no item, no stuff 
or substance or part, which is not at once the same and 
different. 

8. There are two types of unity: fusion, the unity of 
qualities, original and acquired, which make up an individ- 
ual; and external unity or contact between individuals in an 
individual of higher order. In the one case, the related 
elements interpenetrate and are lost in one another; in the 
other case, they remain distinct from one another. 

The distinction between ideal and real relations offers no 
difficulties; for our theory applies equally well to both. 
Ideal relations are those which exist between real things 
only when some mind knows them, or they are relations 
which exist between purely ideal entities, like numbers or 
other concepts. For example, the relation of likeness be- 
tween two observed sense elements is an ideal relation of the 
former type; the relation of successor of between Two and 
One is an ideal relation of the latter type. It is clear that 
the likeness of two sense data is not itself a sense datum 
or a physical fact in any meaning, and it is equally clear 
that it exists only through the act of comparing the things 
which we subsequently call like. Now when we compare 
sense data the resulting relation involves all the elements 



THE THEORY OF RELATIONS 273 

of our analysis: the total quality of each datum is affected 
by the comparison, the data are united through this act of 
the mind and, in that act, they form a new whole with its 
own properties. Of course, where we do not actually have in 
mind the things compared — as when, for example, we 
compare the size of two cities — the ideal relation exists, 
not between the real things compared, but between our 
concepts of them; and our interpretation applies there: 
each concept is enriched through the comparison and both 
are united into a larger total meaning. Finally, in the case 
where the relations hold between things which are them- 
selves ideal, both the ideal things and the relations between 
them exist only through the mind; hence the situation is 
the same. Yet, even in this case, and generally, ideal 
relations are not wholly subjective. For, although they 
exist only through the mental act of comparison, it is the 
native characters of the things compared, either directly or 
through their conceptual representatives, which initiate the 
comparison, and these are objective. 



CHAPTER X 

THE UNITY OF MINDS 

IN our chapter on Relations we studied the more abstract 
aspects of the relations of one mind to another and to 
nature at large; in this chapter, using all the results which 
we have won so far, we shall try to sketch a concrete theory 
of these relations. How shall we conceive of the unity of our 
world: as the ideal unity of a multitude of individuals, 
like a constellation of stars, or as a real unity, like the com- 
position of colors in a painting, where each patch is contiguous 
with its neighbor in a single whole ? This is the problem ex- 
pressed in the alternative — monism or pluralism ? 

That each mind is a little world, distinct from other human 
minds, is a commonplace of philosophical reflection. Al- 
though there is great similarity both in the structure and the 
elements of minds, there are no elements common to both. 
We think of minds in relation to one another as like islands 
of the sea; if you are in one you cannot be at the same time 
in another and there is no getting directly from one to 
another. But despite the lack of contiguity and overlapping 
among minds, there are the obvious relations between 
them: one knows another, one exists in the same time- 
series with another and one can exert causal influence upon 
another. How can we reconcile the separation of minds 
with these empirical relations between them of time and 
cause and knowledge ? 



THE UNITY OF MINDS 275 

It is natural to suppose that these relations must be medi- 
ated by the physical world which lies somehow "between" 
minds, just as the ocean mediates communication between 
the islands which dot its expanse. But most doctrines of 
pluralism, especially the extreme form called monadism, 
deny themselves this avenue of solution. For, recognizing, 
as we do, that nature is only experience, monadism conceives 
of that experience either as falling within known minds 
or else as composed of assumed minds equally isolated; and 
so, by interpreting the medium after the nature of the 
things to be mediated by it, monadism deprives it of all 
mediating power, thus leaving us with a larger number of 
separate individuals, with the relations between them still 
to interpret. 

That monadism is incapable of interpreting these rela- 
tions, we have shown in the preceding chapter. 

And not only the relations between minds, but their 
origin and death as well, are difficult for the monadist to 
explain, as Ward has shown in his Realm of Ends. Every 
mind that we know has an origin in time out of the 
bodies of its parents. Now, if all reproduction were mono- 
sexual, we might perhaps conceive of a mind as thrown off 
by the parent body, much as a satellite is thrown off by a 
planet; it would spring from its parent and yet, having 
once come to be, would exist separate from its source and 
carry on an independent career. But such an interpretation 
of the facts is clearly insufficient in the case of bisexual 
reproduction. For the new individual springs from the 
fusion of two other individuals, which must first come into 



276 THE SELF AND NATURE 

actual contact before the new one can arise. The birth of 
every human mind presupposes, therefore, the possibility of 
a substantial bond between other individuals, which is 
denied by monadism. Moreover, although the new individ- 
ual acquires an existence which is materially separate from 
its parents, it always remains in contact with the world of 
nature as a whole, and in dependence upon it for preserva- 
tion. Just as the satellite still keeps its gravitational rela- 
tions with the planet and the rest of the universe, so the 
mind depends for sustenance upon the sense experiences 
which flow in upon it from nature. 

Finally, monadism is incompatible with the fact that 
minds die. Everybody who accepts the doctrine of the 
unity of mind and body must recognize that even as the 
mind springs from nature, so it dissipates back into nature 
again. But if the mind is self-subsistent, it is difficult to see 
how it could disintegrate. Were the death of the mind due 
to a conflict of elements within it, we might perhaps con- 
ceive of this as possible; but its death is obviously co- 
determined by external facts. The somatic forces of the 
body, for the most part unrepresented in consciousness, 
are the proximate causes of the death of a mind, and the 
indirect cause may even be some fact in another mind. 
If the monadistic world view is true, how can one mind 
destroy another? Surely a mind which can destroy an- 
other must be connected with it by some substantial 
root — both must be parts of a single whole. Consistent 
monadists, like Howison and McTaggart, deny that minds 
are ever born or die. 



THE UNITY OF MINDS 277 

The inability of monadism to explain the relations be- 
tween minds and their origin and death, is due to its theory 
of the mind as an isolated and autonomous reality. This 
theory, we believe, is false. Let us recall some of the facts 
developed by us in our early chapters. 

The self is given to us, not isolated and circumscribed, but 
in immediate contact with sense elements which are a true 
part of nature. These sense elements, in connection with 
others beyond my own mind, but continuous with them, 
bring me into indirect touch with all other minds. All minds 
overlap with nature and through nature with one another. 
Although the ideas which we have of another mind are not 
in contact with it, they are, nevertheless, mediated by a 
continuum of unbroken reality right from the door of one 
mind to that of another. Just as when I touch this side of 
the wall I am in indirect contact with the other side through 
connecting and continuous material, so through my body 
and the intervening sense world and the body of my fellow 
— all parts of one uncut reality — I am in indirect contact 
with his mind. Monadism makes the mistake of interpreting 
nature in its relations to our minds after the analogy of one 
mind in its relations to another. But because a sense ele- 
ment in your mind is not in mine also, it does not follow 
that both are not together in the mind of nature. Just 
the opposite, we claim, is the case. And because nature 
contains the sense elements belonging to both minds, it 
can mediate the causal and noetic relations of both. If we 
understand the relations of the mind to nature we can com- 
prehend the relations of one mind to another. The theory 
which I wish to present is as follows. 



278 THE SELF AND NATURE 

Much of the content of the mind is determined by the 
activities of the self. For example, the muscular sensations 
which arise when I lift my hand are the expression of some 
interest of mine in this act. But by far the larger part of the 
content of mind does not express my activities. The visual 
panorama, for example, is created not by me, but for me. 
Of course, in so far as what I see depends upon my atten- 
tion, I co-operate in bringing it into existence; nevertheless 
my share in its creation is small. Its dependence on the eye 
is not dependence on me; for I do not create my eyes. And 
even when, in reacting to and transforming the environ- 
ment, I seem to be most active in determining the content 
of the mind, I am dependent upon the help of foreign forces. 
When, for example, seeing a leaf fall, I stretch out my hand 
to grasp it or weave it into a garland with other leaves, I 
obviously create sensations in my own mind, and in nature's 
also, since it overlaps with mine; yet even in this my own 
work I am dependent upon the help of nature. For, in the 
first place, the hands which I use were made and are main- 
tained by forces which are no part of myself; and, in the 
second place, I can have my way with the leaves only in so 
far as I can adapt my way to their way, my will to their 
will. All my acts, and therefore all the sensations which 
result from them, depend upon the co-operation, first, of the 
somatic forces — the, to me, unconscious forces of the body 
— and second, upon the forces in the environment of the 
body. 

But how can these foreign forces affect the content of my 
mind ? Simply because they are attached to the sense 



THE UNITY OF MINDS 279 

materials which they determine in exactly as immediate a 
fashion as my own- impulses are attached to the body. They 
play directly upon, terminate and are expressed directly in 
the content of my mind. Of course I am not in contact with 
them; if I were, they would be a part of my mind and I 
should understand them as I do my own acts; but I am in 
contact with the material of their expression. And so, in- 
directly at any rate, through the sense elements, they and I 
form a single whole. The same sense elements figure twice 
over and are under a double control — once in my mind and 
once in the mind of nature, which is at least two minds, the 
mind of the body and the mind of the environment. The 
sense content of the mind has two parts — the one, contain- 
ing the muscular and organic sensations, controlled jointly 
by the self and the unconscious forces of the body; the 
other, containing the so-called peripheral sensations, which 
are under the control of the self only through the body and 
the environment. 

Sometimes I seem not to be in co-operation but in conflict 
with the will of nature. Thus, I, a craftsman, may try to 
impose a form upon my materials which they will not take; 
or I may sail against the breeze which, tack as I may, will 
perhaps overturn my boat; I may pull at something which 
will not budge, or try to move a limb which is paralyzed. 

How are we to conceive of these relations of co-operation 
or conflict between the self and nature ? Such relations are 
familiar enough within the self where they are immediately 
given. Whenever we use both arms to draw a load, we exem- 
plify the one relation ; whenever, beginning to do something, 



28o THE SELF AND NATURE 

we gradually or suddenly inhibit the action because of some 
conscientious scruple, we exemplify the other. But in such 
cases the conflicting or conspiring activities are grown to- 
gether in a single self; they touch one another directly; 
while in the cases before us there is no such touch of one 
with the other. 

Yet, with the theory in hand, we need not be at a loss to 
understand. We must conceive of every sense element as 
the terminus of many activities which are in immediate 
actual or potential control of it. These activities are not in 
direct contact with one another as are the activities within 
a self; but they are indirectly connected through the sense 
elements which are their common termini. Now suppose 
that one of the activities which terminates upon a sense 
element begins to alter it; this will immediately stimulate 
others to responses which, issuing upon the same datum, 
will join forces with it in a common action. Hence changes 
wrought in the environment of the organism stimulate it to 
activities which lay hold of this same material and recreate 
it into forms favorable to survival. The will of nature, 
in effecting the original changes, meets the reacting will of 
the organism in exactly the same point of the world, and the 
upshot of the interaction is the resultant of the forces thus 
engaged. Just as the efforts of the organism are directed 
towards changes in a certain direction, so, we must suppose, 
the intent of nature is likewise fixed. If the tendency of 
the organism falls in with the will of nature, the result must 
be an accelerated change in the direction desired by both; 
if it be in the contrary direction, the result must be some 



THE UNITY OF MINDS 28 1 

sort of compromise between the two, depending upon the 
persistence, the strength of purpose of each. 

We can now understand the mechanism of the interaction 
between one self and another. Suppose I see a log of wood. 
This means, of course, the presence of visual sense elements 
in my mind. Suppose now that the presence of these ele- 
ments incites me to lift one end of the log. This means the 
release of an activity which, through the co-operation of the 
somatic forces governing my muscles, is directed upon 
the very same sense elements which incited it, so that, 
through the further co-operation of the will of nature in con- 
trol of the log, one end is raised — a new configuration of sense 
elements is produced. But now, this lifting of the object is 
a process not only in my mind, but in the mind of nature also, 
and excites some interest there to prolong it in a larger visual 
process with which your mind overlaps. Hence, you too get 
visual sensations which you call your seeing of the log; 
these, in turn, release an activity in you; you, therefore, 
raise the other end; between us both, with the co-operation 
of nature, of course, the log of wood is carried to the mill 
where it undergoes further changes satisfying other pur- 
poses. There has been no contact between one self and 
another; yet there has been an interaction — through the 
common sense world upon which your activities and mine 
unite and terminate. The case might be, of course, that 
instead of carrying the log between us, we should each pull 
at an end and try to wrest it from the other; when the result 
would depend upon the persistence of purpose of each, on 
the one hand, and on what we call the strength of each, on 



282 THE SELF AND NATURE 

the other, this strength being nothing else than the will 
of the somatic forces of our respective bodies, without the 
co-operation of which we are powerless to effect anything. 
But, in either case, of co-operation or conflict between us, 
the mode of the interaction is the same — an activity con- 
trolling a sense element releases another activity, which 
meets it and influences it through the intermediation of this 
same sense medium. 

The differences between the interaction of one empirical 
self and another and between a self and the environment are 
obviously as follows. In the former case, since the sense con- 
tent of no two empirical minds is the same, the action of the 
two activities does not terminate directly upon the same sense 
elements, but only indirectly through the intermediation of 
further connecting sense elements; whereas, between the 
self and nature, the body or the physical environment, there 
is immediate contact. Another difference is this — my inter- 
action with the fellow man is coupled with some understand- 
ing of the purposes which underlie the changes which he 
effects in the sense world, and to which I respond with my 
own activities; whereas I am utterly unable to interpret the 
stimuli which I receive from nature. Yet clearly, the proc- 
ess is essentially the same in both cases. 

If the view which we have expounded be correct, the 
causal cosmic process is throughout spiritual and continuous. 
The forces which govern it are strivings, the world in which 
they operate is a world of experience, of minds, and through- 
out knowledge is the guide to action. Every response, the 
blindest, the most purely instinctive, implies a kind of 



THE UNITY OF MINDS 283 

knowledge of the material upon which it operates and of the 
mode of activity of the forces which it has to meet and 
master. Only in the case of our fellow men, and to a slighter 
degree in the case of the lower animals, are we able sympa- 
thetically to understand the forces at work in our world; 
yet we can always know their mode of operation ; and such 
knowledge is all that we need for action. Our science is the 
perfection of such knowledge. 

The theory of interaction which we have been advocating 
is obviously similar to that which Ward expounds so per- 
suasively in his Realm of Ends. We, like him, conceive of 
all causation as the response of one activity — intelligent in 
the large meaning of this term — to another. We claim, 
however, this superiority for our version of the doctrine: 
through our conception of the continuity of the sense world 
and the overlapping, directly or indirectly, of minds we 
supply a common ground and basis for interaction. We are 
able to bring together the manifold forces which, in his view 
as in all monadisms, must remain forever out of touch with 
one another and incapable of mutual effect. The great 
unities of time and causation become for us something more 
than mere ideal frames or illusions. And the knowledge 
which one mind has of another is shown to be no accidental 
harmony, but the result of an indirect contact through 
sense experience. I could never image the inner life of my 
fellow if I did not live in contact with its expressions. And, 
although the resemblance between idea and object in the 
purely representative knowledge which we have of our fel- 
low men, who are cut off from direct contact with the ideas 



284 THE SELF AND NATURE 

through which this knowledge is mediated, can never be 
observed and directly verified by us, we are able to give to 
it an unequivocal interpretation. The ideal relation of re- 
semblance, which would emerge in the mind if we could get 
the idea and the object there together, has its ground and 
counterpart in the real objective genesis of both in a com- 
mon contiguous world. My interpretations of the inner life 
of my fellow grow up in contact with its expressions, which 
are themselves in contact and in correspondence with the 
inner life which my ideas mean. If minds are cut off from 
their objects, it is impossible to conceive how knowledge 
should grow up within them; but if both are parts of a 
single whole, we can understand how the subjective world 
can be fashioned into truth about the objective; how this 
harmony should spring up between them. Instead of the 
accidental or unaccountably pre-established harmony of 
separate worlds, we have the self-establishing harmony of 
parts of a single world. 

The origin of the self which monadism, as we have seen, 
has so much trouble in explaining, can be understood with- 
out difficulty in terms of our theory. The self is an out- 
growth of two bodies. These bodies are, to be sure, brought 
together by the selves of which they are partially the expres- 
sions, but the new self which results is not born of the 
substance of those selves. The self is only a part of the 
system of the body; interwoven with it and supporting it 
are the, for us, unconscious somatic forces. In mysterious 
ways, which we cannot hope to understand in detail, the 
activity of these forces, through the medium of the sense 



THE UNITY OF MINDS 285 

world which is common to them and to us, prolongs itself 
into the mind and awakens there the sexual striving. As a 
result of the union of elements from the two bodies brought 
together by this striving, there develops a new body and a 
new mind. The somatic forces of the body — and by the 
soma I mean the body so far as it is unconscious, that is, 
unrepresented in the mind — are a mind or a system of 
minds. One set of elements in this system are the activities 
which express themselves in the sexual cells. These activi- 
ties separate themselves from the others in a way which we 
can perhaps understand. We know that under certain cir- 
cumstances parts of the self become split off from the rest 
and maintain a separate existence. This psychic fission is, 
we believe, of the same type as cellular fission ; or, to express 
the same thought in another way, the one is the outer mani- 
festation of the other. Thus the sexual elements get free of 
the rest of the body. In the act of fertilization they fuse into 
one whole. Just as one set of psychic activities can become 
split off from the whole of which it was once a part, so activi- 
ties can unite with one another and form a new self. In all 
distraction or conflict of attention we have the commence- 
ment, in the normal mental life, of the one process, and in all 
redintegration of attention, the analogue of the other. Thus 
is born a new body with its somatic soul and its psyche, the 
new human self. The development and isolation of the ner- 
vous system as the organ of mind out of the general cyto- 
plasm must be conceived of in the same fashion as the release 
of the sexual cells from the parent body. The mind is an 
offshoot of the soma, only more intimately connected with 



286 THE SELF AND NATURE 

it, just as the body is an offshoot of other bodies. The new 
body begins its development in closest touch with the 
mother body; then gradually gets free of it; but the mind 
never wins freedom from the soma. 

By means of this conception of the origin of the self, we 
can understand the striking facts of heredity. The new body 
is like the parent bodies because it is their product — bone 
of their bone and flesh of their flesh. The new mind is like the 
minds of the parents because, although not an outgrowth of 
these minds, it is an outgrowth of the same forces from 
which they too sprang. And just as the form of the 
new mind is perpetuated through fission from the old, so all 
those wonderful harmonies between mind and body, and 
between parent-mind and child-mind, have their origin and 
continuation — harmonies so unintelligible from the monad- 
istic standpoint — from the same source. 

And we can go further in our understanding; we can 
understand not only the origin of mind but the origin of life 
itself. All scientific evidence points to the origin of life out 
of the inorganic world. The vitalist is doubtless right in his 
conviction that living activities cannot be reduced to the 
form of the inorganic ; yet the materials of life are certainly 
inorganic and the new form must have been a development 
of what we call the lower form. Moreover, life never gets 
free of its dependence on the lifeless — on its environment; 
apart from which it would soon wither and die. The proc- 
esses of life bear a relation to the inorganic world similar to 
that which the child bears to its mother. Just as the infant 
grows out of the body of its mother and remains for a long 



THE UNITY OF MINDS 287 

period within her, so the vital process grew out of the inor- 
ganic and remains forever dependent upon it. 

The cosmic process is a hierarchy of rhythms. The lower 
is the parent of the higher and its necessary support. The 
fundamental rhythm is that of the inorganic world. The 
minds expressed in this world are the parents of all minds 
and the absolute overruling destiny. Here certain plans are 
laid down — the so-called physical laws — to which all must 
conform and behind which there is nothing more ultimate 
— the premisses for all other forms of existence. Doubtless 
even here there is going on a slow process of change ; but in 
this region of reality there is greater stability of form than in 
any other. Imposed upon this rhythm and sprung from it, 
is the vital rhythm. Here there is more rapid change, a 
superior adventurousness seemingly, but at the cost of 
independence. Finally, there is the human self — the last of 
nature's products. And here we seem to find the greatest 
originality and also the greatest instability. The most way- 
ward and spontaneous of nature's children are also the most 
delicate and ephemeral. Some stirring of unrest in the 
bosom of nature, incompatible with its own way of existence 
and so incapable of development there, led to that fission of 
its substance whence sprang life and the human mind. 

After the problem of birth we must briefly consider the 
problem of death. We have seen how hopeless it is for 
monadism to solve this. On the other hand, our theory of 
the solidarity of the cosmos permits us to do so without 
great difficulty. In our chapter on the relation of soul and 
body we proved the dependence of the former on its material 



288 THE SELF AND NATURE 

organs of expression. Not only is it impossible to conceive 
of the existence of the former apart from the latter; it is 
equally impossible to conceive of the continuance of one 
without the other. The two are a single integral fact — the 
destruction of one necessarily entails the destruction of the 
other. Now these organs of expression are subject not only 
to the mind but to the somatic forces of the body and the 
forces of the environment as well. Like all other material 
facts, they are the termini not of one, but of manifold activi- 
ties, and their form and integrity is created and maintained 
through the equilibrium of these. The death of the mind is 
the result of a conflict between the body and powers of the 
environment which find the activities of the organism incom- 
patible with their own. The instinct of self-preservation is 
the endeavor of the psyche to resist the forces which tend to 
break up its organs of expression. This resistance is, we 
know, of only short duration; in the end, the form of the 
organism and the soul, which is its entelechy, must submit 
wholly to the control of the inorganic world. This world per- 
mits the deviation which we call life; but only for a short 
time; it soon finds the continuance of the organism incom- 
patible with its own interests; jealous, as it were, of the use 
of matter for the new form, it reabsorbs it to itself again. 
And so, " all life pays the penalty in death for its existence." 
Thus, through the same theory of the solidarity of the 
mind with nature by means of which we solved the problem 
of the mind's birth, we solve that of its death. And in terms 
of this theory, we can also understand how one mind can 
destroy another. This cannot occur directly any more than 



THE UNITY OF MINDS 289 

interaction between them can occur directly. But through 
acts which are its expressions, acts which prolong themselves 
beyond the body into the physical world with which it is 
continuous, a mind can destroy the form of the body of its 
fellow, also continuous with nature, and so destroy his inner 
life which is a function of that form. The contact of one mind 
with another through the medium of the common sense 
world, and the relations of harmony and of conflict between 
the forces at work there, enable us to understand how this 
is possible. 

Those who refuse to accept the death of the mind as a 
fact, point to the worlds of memory and imagination and 
thought where the soul seems to be free of the sense world. 
They admit the dependence of the mind upon the sense 
world in perception, and also that memory and imagination 
and intellect presuppose this world genetically, but they 
believe that, once having arisen, the higher spheres of mental 
life are free from the lower. And in these spheres, to be sure, 
man does acquire a certain independence of the changing 
aspects of his environment; he gradually accumulates and 
creates a little microcosm all his own. But, as we have 
proved in our chapter on the relation of mind and body, this 
seeming independence is an illusion. For memory, imagina- 
tion and intellect cannot exist apart from their bodily organs 
of expression. Now these latter are admittedly under the 
control of nature and finally destroyed by its will. And 
hence there is no part of man which is exempt from death. 

The view of the cosmic solidarity defended in this chapter 
is very different from that known as absolute idealism. 



290 THE SELF AND NATURE 

According to absolute idealism, minds are not one in so far 
as they are connected by a common sense world — our view 
— but in so far as they are parts of one mind — the abso- 
lute. The advantage of this latter view is that it enables us 
to conceive of interaction according to the type of the inter- 
play of activities within a self; the re-enforcements and 
inhibitions of strivings, the springing up and the dying 
away of interests. And this advantage is, I think, great; 
for this mode of interaction, being most intimate to us, is 
best understood by us. Yet the advantages of a theory for 
the solution of a particular problem cannot outweigh 
inherent contradictions. Some of these have been con- 
vincingly set forth by James. The unity of the self is incom- 
patible with the manifold differences and oppositions which 
exist between empirical selves. It is impossible that a single 
self should at once know and not know, or at the same time 
seek and reject a given thing, which the absolute self would 
have to do if it contained within itself as parts human selves 
with their antipathies and their varieties of knowledge and 
ignorance. The world, of course, contains these differences, 
but this does not imply that they are united under the form 
of a single self. Absolute idealism is valuable as a corrective 
for extreme types of pluralism; our view is close to it in 
emphasizing the solidarity of minds ; but, on the other hand, 
is opposed to it in insisting on the real separateness of selves 
and the incompatibility of their interests. The various 
selves are not next-to-next directly, but only through inter- 
vening sense material; their minds may, therefore, overlap, 
but they do not constitute one mind. 



THE UNITY OF MINDS 29 1 

The theory of the unity of minds which we have been 
developing has involved the use of two concepts — that of 
interaction as response and that of the hierarchy of causes 
— which require further elucidation. The reader will also 
rightly demand of us that we state the bearing of these ideas 
upon the important problem of freedom. 

The unit of all causation is an action, a process embodying 
impulse or purpose. But every action, as we have seen, is a 
response. And we must go further; for the situation which 
stimulates the response is itself stimulated and responds; 
the reaction broadens out into an interaction. A moving 
body tends in obedience to its impulse to move towards the 
earth, and the earth in its turn responds to the body and 
moves towards it. The environment awakens the organism 
to adaptive movements, but answers by being moulded into 
hut and food and clothing. Every impulse, in order to find 
fulfillment, goes beyond the body in which it is resident and 
invokes the co-operation of other elements. 

Another simple illustration drawn from human life will 
make plain what is meant. A wood carver seeks to carry out 
his design in the material of his art. His purpose animating 
his hand would be ineffective without the co-operation of 
knife and material. These must lend themselves to his uses, 
and the final product is their co-operative endeavor. The 
maker of the design is quite as much the wood which 
submitted to the handling as the artist who planned and 
wrought. 

Every new event is, therefore, due to the action of some 
system. We can never trace it back to a single agent as 



292 THE SELF AND NATURE 

cause. We attribute the new institution to the reformer, yet 
we know that without the co-operation of the other members 
of the society it could not have been. Still, in affirming that 
the system is the cause, we do not imply that the individual 
member is not cause; for the system is nothing besides the 
elements in their interrelations, the wills in their consensus. 
Moreover, it is always possible to attribute an event more 
to one member of a conspiracy than to others; the responsi- 
bility cannot be equally divided; it has to be borne chiefly 
by the stronger and more persuasive members, in whom the 
purpose which brought about the event originated, and by 
whom it is sustained. 

If all causation takes place through a system, we have to 
inquire how large the system is which is the cause of any 
effect. Now every effect has its proximate origin in some 
relatively isolated system of individuals in immediate con- 
tact with one another. Changes accrue to individuals be- 
cause of internal processes evoked through their relations 
with other individuals; the appearance of spontaneity is 
due to this, as we have seen. In this manner changes arise 
in the various individuals all over the cosmos. But, since 
all individuals are in direct or remote contact with each 
other, a change in any one part of the world must have some 
effect in every other part. The individual and its environ- 
ment undergo mutual modification; but the environment 
has itself an environment; hence its responses to that will 
necessarily be modified by its responses to this, and vice 
versa, to the remotest corners of the world. Waves of change 
spread from each thing to every other thing, and return 



THE UNITY OF MINDS 293 

again upon each ; and although such changes are subsequent 
and transitive, being carried by intermediates, neverthe- 
less, since any wave of change must be met by other waves 
proceeding from other things, every concrete change in- 
volves the interference of waves and is, therefore, partly 
determined by everything in the universe. 

Moreover, the system into which any causal agent enters 
is not a simple one where all the elements are on a level. So 
far at least as the human mind is concerned, there are no less 
than two into which it directly enters — the body and the 
external world. The mind can act only through the consent 
and co-operation of the body, and when the body acts it acts 
subject to the laws — that is, the control of — the physical 
environment. A twofold limit is, therefore, set to all human 
behaviour. The sense elements, through which alone the 
mind can express itself and act, are also media for the action 
and expression of the system of the body, which, in turn, is 
played upon by the forces of the physical world. The acts of 
the mind, therefore, while single outwardly, are complex in 
their inner significance and control. They represent in 
themselves an equilibrium of many forces. Being multiply 
determined, every event in human life is richer in its meaning 
than would appear. 

Despite the entanglement of human purposes in cosmic 
intentions, despite the fact that we realize our wills only 
because nature finds it conducive to its own ends that we do 
so, our human freedom is not imperiled. For by freedom 
we mean, above all, that an individual's acts are its own; 
that of whatever it does it is itself cause. Now this, we have 



294 THE SELF AND NATURE 

seen, is true. For, although all causation is interaction and 
each event depends upon a system, nevertheless, the agent 
is a necessary element in the system. If a thing's acts were 
wholly determined by its environment, then indeed it would 
be unfree; but this determination is only partial; for it 
contributes its due share to the result. If the deed could not 
happen without the co-operation of the other elements in the 
system, it could also not happen without the aid of this one; 
if it needs them, they also need it. Doubtless the world has 
made me what I am, but I have made the world. To the 
world belongs the responsibility for what I do ; yet I, being 
part of the world, must accept my share of the praise or 
blame. To be sure, every act which I perform expresses 
nature's will as well as my own; yet nature has taken 
account of my will in expressing its own. 

Again, if the past were discontinuous with the present 
and, having brought it into existence, still controlled it, then 
indeed we should be unfree and there would be no self- 
determination. But, as we know, the past as such does not 
exist, but only so much of it as survives in the present. The 
past, therefore, as past, can never compel us to the perform- 
ance of any act; for only that which exists can be a cause 
and act; and the supposed control of the present by the 
past is simply part of the present's own control of itself — 
the control exerted by that part of the past which is identical 
with the present. A may cause B, and B, C; but A cannot 
cause C except in so far as a part of A is a part of B. And B, 
as we know, is always unique, despite the share of A which 
it contains; whence again B and not A is the true cause of 



THE UNITY OF MINDS 295 

C. We cannot, therefore, shift the blame for our misdeeds 
upon our hereditary past; for our heredity exists and 
operates only through ourselves; in blaming it, we blame 
ourselves. And again, when the sexual elements fuse and 
make me ; they are no alien creators of me, to whose poor 
selves I can attribute all my imperfections — they are the 
elemental me. The past has made me what I am ; but I am 
that past that made me. 

As a conclusion to this chapter, let us examine and test the 
so-called consciousness of freedom in the light of the abstract 
principles which we have now worked out. Our conscious- 
ness of freedom, is, in the first place, a consciousness of 
authorship. We are conscious that what we do is our own; 
that it is we who perform our acts, and not somebody or 
something else. And this means that we are conscious that 
each act belongs to the whole of interwoven activities which 
is the self; that it grows out of this rather than out of some 
other sphere of reality; and second, that each act is a sub- 
stantial and effective fact, and not a mere expression or 
phenomenon or byplay of something else. Both the home 
of the act within the self and the substantiality of the act are 
given in the experience of the act. And, in accordance with 
our results, we know that with reference to both, conscious- 
ness does not lead us astray. 

The consciousness of authorship is just as vivid, I think, 
when we are acting habitually, lawfully, in accordance with 
some plan or tendency from which the act can be deduced, 
as when we are acting spontaneously and perversely. In the 
latter case, moreover, one side of the feeling of authorship is 



296 THE SELF AND NATURE 

far less strong — the relation of the act to the self, its home. 
For, being novel and fortuitous, it is not completely expli- 
cable from the past and familiar self that we know; hence 
we feel that we are borne along by some power not ourselves, 
rather than self-determined. Yet the other aspect of the 
consciousness of freedom remains — the substantiality of 
the act. 

There is, however, a certain amount of illusion in the con- 
sciousness of freedom. For we are seldom aware of the 
extent to which each act of ours depends upon the help of 
foreign forces, because these forces are not within the 
mind and accessible to us, as are our own. Yet, in more 
reflective or less self-assertive moods, the other side of the 
situation may come to mind; and we may clearly recognize 
that the act belongs not merely to the restricted area of the 
self, but also to the wider region of the world. Nevertheless, 
our consciousness of freedom never wholly misleads. 

There is another aspect of the so-called consciousness of 
freedom upon which libertarians usually place more stress — 
the alleged awareness of inde termination, supposed to be 
most clear in the case of choice. Now as a rule, I think, this 
consciousness of indetermination is really less vivid in the 
case of choice than elsewhere, even when the alternatives are 
many. For, generally, choices are made in accordance with 
definite principles, habits or purposes, and are therefore 
necessary and predictable from them. Placed in a situa- 
tion demanding a choice of policy or morals, no matter how 
many be the abstract possibilities of action, we know clearly 
how we shall act, and, after we have acted, we feel that we 



THE UNITY OF MINDS 297 

could not have done otherwise; no other act could be ours, 
could consist with our nature. The consciousness of un- 
limited possibilities is purely imaginative. It is an aesthetic 
and playful putting of oneself into various abstractly pos- 
sible situations, largely to the end of enlarging one's experi- 
ence imaginatively; it does not imply the earnest supposi- 
tion that any one of them is really possible for oneself. The 
process of reflection upon and weighing of alternatives is an 
endeavor to discover which act is logically demanded by 
one's own nature. In both cases the alternatives present to 
the mind represent only abstract possibilities, not real 
possibilities of action for me. 

A clearer sphere of consciousness of ^determination is the 
sudden development, under the stress of novel circum- 
stances, of new interests, beliefs, attitudes. A luminous 
consciousness of choice is not, as a rule, present here. One 
finds oneself believing, doing, valuing, as never before. 
Striking is the break with one's past. One cannot deduce 
this present self from the old. There is an unpleasant sense 
of rupture, of discontinuity. One longs perhaps for the old 
simplicity and single-mindedness ; one is afraid of oneself 
and suspicious of the issue. Yet there is also a sense of 
exhilaration, of freedom. This is negative freedom, freedom 
from the past and its ties. We shall not try to evaluate it in 
comparison with the freedom of rational action. No one can. 
deny, however, the interest and importance of it. It per- 
tains to all refreshing and original natures. We are especially 
interested in the problem of how far this consciousness of 
^determination is genuine or illusory. We have to admit, 



298 THE SELF AND NATURE 

of course, that the elements of discontinuity and chance are 
often not so great as they seem. We can usually show, not 
merely that the new acts and beliefs grew out of the past, 
but how they followed in terms of our former and still 
operative interests and instincts and attitudes. It is the 
business of every psychologist and scientific biographer to 
do this. Nevertheless, a large unaccountable element will 
remain. The biographer always finds it a problem in study- 
ing the life story of the man or woman of genius, especially 
of artistic genius. Yet the same thing is to be found in the 
history of less-gifted people. It may be only some subtle 
change in temperament or mood, which, however, may per- 
vade the whole man. Now, as I have maintained in Chapter 
Six, I see no reason for supposing that, despite the failure 
to deduce these changes, they must be deducible. They 
are always a development; of this there can be no doubt; 
but they are not a logical development. Here is chance, the 
accidental, the non-rational. Of course, in its turn, it shares 
the fate of everything fortuitous — it becomes a new habit, 
and so a law. Yet there are some natures in whom novelties 
are never exhausted. Such natures are always wonderful 
to us. 



CHAPTER XI 

CONCLUSION 

IDEALLY the speculative philosopher has no concern 
with the specifically human interests. His is an effort at 
complete dispassionateness. To survey all time and all 
existence without foreboding and without hope, is his aim. 
Since, however, the philosopher is after all a man, he cannot 
help inquiring into the bearing of his theory of the world 
upon happiness and the aspirations of men. He may not 
adjust his theory of the cosmos to his own wishes and emo- 
tions ; yet he is bound so to order his inner life that, knowing 
what he does of the world, he may live there at peace with 
himself. The instinct of self-preservation is operative even 
on the spiritual plane. 

The time is past for men to ask of either philosophy or 
religion a guarantee of the satisfaction of any of their 
mundane personal interests. The protection of the body 
from disease and death, happy love, children, the oppor- 
tunity to direct and create, friendship and the esteem of 
one's fellows, they have no magic to assure. But touching 
certain ideal interests, men still seek confidence from the 
philosopher. First, there is the demand for the perpetuation 
of the individual, immortality; second, the demand for the 
perpetuation and continued development of human culture, 
progress and the birth of the superman; third, the meta- 



300 THE SELF AND NATURE 

physical ideal of cosmic perfection, theodicy. These de- 
mands, although they may all be held at the same time, 
form a series, each leading through renunciation to the more 
insistent emphasis on the one following. 

The demand for immortality is an extension and sublima- 
tion of the instinct of self-preservation. The process of all 
life is the passage of purposes to fulfillment. But realization 
is never complete. Although at brief moments of triumph it 
sometimes seems to the human animal as if he had fulfilled 
his destiny and would be content to sleep, he soon discovers 
a new striving, awakening in the consummation of the old, 
to disturb the peace of work perfected. Hence, death leaves 
beauty unenjoyed or uncreated, the service of duty or 
affection unperformed. And, since for the full realization of 
human aims, the existence of other men is a necessary con- 
dition, the desire for immortality is as much or more a desire 
for the survival of one's friends and co-workers as of oneself. 
But death is an evil for another reason besides its hin- 
drance to the fulfillment of purposes. Men seek not only to 
realize aims, but to keep the values which accrue through 
realization. The good of life is not only activity in the pur- 
suit of ends, but an ever expanding and enriched state of 
mind, a treasure house of memories, insights and aptitudes. 
A by-product of every action and performance is the crea- 
tion of personality. We cannot keep our works or days, but 
the memory of them, and the character which we have built 
up through them, may abide, at least for a time. It is the loss 
of these, the finest result of any man's endeavors, which we so 
poignantly deplore at his death. We can dispense with his 



CONCLUSION 301 

services, for any other man, perhaps, can take his place; but 
the man's self is unique and its destruction irretrievable. 
Seeing as we soon do their inevitableness, we soon get used 
to the passage of youth and the transiency of pleasures; 
although they too bring their inevitable sting, for we ask 
that even the flying moments stay their course; but to the 
loss of their possible fruits in memory and personality, to 
this, reconciliation is a far harder task. 

Indifference to death is always an indication of callous- 
ness; we admire it in the soldier or the explorer not as an 
end in itself, but as a sign that something better than mere 
existence is esteemed. Of itself, it signalizes a want of feel- 
ing for the individual and personal. Yet to lament annihila- 
tion and to recognize its inevitableness are not incompatible. 
To this end there is needed, only in larger measure, the same 
subjugation of regret which we discover in the fine old man 
who, while remaining sensitive to the loss of his youth, still 
preserves sweetness and serenity. For, rebel against it as he 
may, the philosopher must recognize that nature did not 
intend that the individual should survive. Viewed dispas- 
sionately, the life of man is no different, from the aspect of 
survival, than that of a plant — it has its growth, its flower- 
ing time, its inescapable decay and death. As we have 
already explained, it is just as impossible for the soul of man 
to survive the disintegration of its organs of expression, as it 
would be for a plant to live on without roots and sunshine. 

But, as we saw in our last chapter, the necessity that the 
individual should perish is not blind. It is due, in the end, to 
an incompatibility of the purposes of the individual with the 



302 THE SELF AND NATURE 

purposes of the environment. If a man could continue to live 
without affecting the course of the world, or if he could live 
without the use of organs, then doubtless he might survive 
indefinitely. But, just as we men are compelled to take the 
life of animals, and sometimes, in the case of an individual 
whose purposes are absolutely irreconcilable with our own, 
to destroy one of our own kind, so with equal reason nature 
destroys us. Of course it is impossible for us to conceive of 
a purpose which could be frustrated by the longer life of 
a Keats or a Shelley, or which would not renounce some- 
thing of its own good for the new poems which would 
have been the fruit of such lives as theirs; yet we cannot 
suppose that our own standards of value are binding upon 
nature; for all we know, some superhuman poet sang 
sweeter songs because of their demise. 

The death of the individual represents, therefore, a two- 
fold failure: first, completely to realize his purposes and 
second, to preserve the personality which he and the world 
have built up. Many who recognize this console themselves 
with the doctrine of the immortality of the race. The desire 
for personal immortality and the love of children are con- 
tradictory, yet compensating attitudes. It is clear that the 
somatic forces of the body, realizing that they cannot pre- 
serve the individual, seek a vicarious perpetuation in the 
creation of a new individual of the same type. Hence, just 
as the joy of producing and maintaining offspring often sup- 
plants ambition, so the doctrine of immortality may be 
interpreted in racial rather than in personal terms. The 
worth of the individual may be thought of as conserved in 



CONCLUSION 303 

communal and over-individual aims — progress in science, 
art, invention, social organization. Even as the soldier gives 
his life freely that his cause may win, so perhaps the individ- 
ual may willingly renounce his existence that the race may 
triumph and the superman be born. 

The importance of racial purposes cannot be overesti- 
mated by the moral philosopher. Since the race is more 
powerful and enduring than the individual, men who meas- 
ure their worth by their contributions to progress have a 
more stable basis for happiness than those who think only of 
self. Yet it is as impossible for the philosopher to guarantee 
the immortality of the race as to give assurance of the sur- 
vival of the individual. And the worth of life should not be 
made to rest on uncriticized metaphysical assumptions. A 
rational happiness can be founded only on well-based ideas. 

An estimate of the doctrine of racial immortality involves 
an interpretation of the evolutionary process and a study of 
its relation to the inorganic world of which, as we saw in our 
last chapter, it is an outgrowth. And here, it might seem, 
is a region where, contrary to the usual, an interpretation of 
nature in terms of purpose is possible. The connection of 
mind with the body and the apparently teleological char- 
acter of the structure and functions of the organism appear 
to provide a clue. 

The old theistic conception of evolution as a unified, 
masterful and anthropocentric process no longer recom- 
mends itself to dispassionate observation. There is, to be 
sure, much harmony of aims manifest in the similarity of 
structure and function in individuals of widely different 



304 THE SELF AND NATURE 

genera and in the mutual adjustment of species to one 
another; yet common origin and adaptation rather than a 
common aim suffice to explain them. And, on the other 
hand, the omnipresent fact of conflict — the soul with its 
high ambitions at odds with its unyielding body, bodies of 
the same species at battle with one another, the different 
species engaged in a death struggle, and all striving against 
the forces of the inorganic world — this fact, coupled with 
the divergence of the many contemporaneous lines of de- 
velopment, tells finally against the hypothesis of singleness 
of aim. One cannot claim that the bird ever did, or ever will, 
strive to be a man or that he exists to serve man. The group 
of facts which Haeckel has called dysteleological, such facts 
as the harmful persistence of organs in the body after their 
uses have been outgrown, monstrosities, abortions, insanity 
and disease, prove that the purposes expressed in the vital 
rhythm are not omnipotent. They show beyond a doubt 
that at every step this process has had to adjust itself, 
accommodate, compromise, retract. 

The conception of Bergson that life has won its way to the 
creation and dominion of man only after much faltering and 
unclearness of aims, after many false steps and against the 
opposition of matter, is far more in harmony with the facts 
than the older theism. It gives wiser recognition to the great 
outstanding truth that life is only a fragment of a larger 
process, the process of the inorganic world, to which life has 
had continually to adjust itself, and on the sufferance of 
which it alone exists. Yet Bergson does not go far enough in 
this recognition. There is no evidence that man has so 



CONCLUSION 305 

ingratiated himself into favor with the will of nature, that 
he has so moulded his purposes into harmony with its pur- 
poses, that the perpetuity of his own is assured. Of course, 
the very existence of life and man's actual attainment are 
evidences that nature has at least consented to their pres- 
ence in the world. Nature has not looked with indifference 
upon the fate of its offspring. Nevertheless, just as a gale at 
sea may overturn a boat and all on board may perish, so 
humanity may suffer shipwreck at the hands of cosmic 
forces. 

The doctrine of the conservation of values, failing to find 
assurance for the individual and the race, has a final refuge 
in the hypothesis of a cosmical immortality. Even if, in the 
end, all human beings are destroyed and leave no offspring, 
it may still be true that their death is necessary to the de- 
velopment of the beings who destroy them, in whose in- 
creased perfection they may win perpetuation. Such a view 
would be only carrying to the ultimate limit the idealization 
of purpose which any father exemplifies when he thinks of 
the happiness of his children as the justification of his efforts, 
even of his failures, and willingly gives his life for them. 
Provided only that the cosmical purposes were in some 
fashion continuous with humanity's, including the latter in 
its own, a man could feel that the values of all his activities 
were eternalized there. If, moreover, he could think that no 
effort of his was lost, that even his sin and suffering and 
failure were means to the perfection of the universe, he 
would have a source of consolation and a motive for living 
triumphant over all despair. The task of religion — to 



306 THE SELF AND NATURE 

provide new and indefeasible motives for living — would be 
accomplished. 

In face of such a conception of the meaning of human life, 
it is impossible for the philosopher to be speechless. He 
cannot accept it merely because of its sublimity and moving 
power, yet he can reject it only because of some positive 
view of the nature of reality with which it is in conflict. 
Obviously, the truth of every theodicy depends upon its 
ability successfully to take account of evil. It behooves us, 
therefore, both because of the independent interest which 
this fact must possess for the speculative philosopher, and 
because of its bearing on a great religious ideal, to inquire 
how we must think of it in terms of our own philosophy. 

If every interest could be fulfilled, there would be only 
good and no evil in the world; for all evil clearly depends 
upon the obstruction or failure of a purpose. To ask for the 
cause of evil is, therefore, identical with inquiring into the 
grounds for failure. Now failure, I think, has no other source 
than the community and mutual dependence of our aims. 
If we were independent beings, each pursuing his own life 
without effect upon the lives of others, in atomistic or 
monadistic fashion, then there would be no evil — and also 
less of the good — in the world. But because for the realiza- 
tion of our purposes we need the co-operation of other wills, 
upon which we cannot count, and because, owing to the 
solidarity of our lives, we seek ends which are incompatible, 
the success and happiness of all is impossible. The clearest 
cases of this are to be found in our social life. When two 
men run a race, or compete for the love of a woman, or for 



CONCLUSION 307 

some prize or place, the happiness of one implies necessarily 
the unhappiness of the other. Or if, seeking to rise to higher 
and more intense ways of living, where one cannot live alone, 
— seeking more subtle and various values in art or social 
life — men strive to elevate their fellows who refuse, then, 
too, it is obvious that they must suffer. These examples of 
evils which grow out of our human solidarity and mutual 
dependence are typical, I believe, of all evil in the cosmos. 
For to us the cosmos is itself a larger society, and our rela- 
tions with nature are of the same sort with our relations to 
our fellow men, only closer and more intimate. The failure 
of any purpose in the world is due, in the last resort, to its 
inability to win the co-operation of other individuals or to its 
incompatibility with their purposes. 

There are, to be sure, certain evils like death and physical 
suffering which seem not to be explicable in this way. Yet 
we have already tried to bring the former within our theory. 
We have shown that we die because for us to live longer 
would interfere with the purposes expressed in the physical 
world. Our will to live is in competition with the will of the 
environment for self-expression through the sense elements 
which make up our bodies. As for physical suffering, 
Schopenhauer has given us, I think, the true explanation. 
Pain is an echo in the mind of the suffering of the somatic 
forces which have failed, for the time being, to maintain 
themselves in competition with the environment. We must 
remember that our sensations are a part of the mind ex- 
pressed in the soma. We suffer when it becomes deranged 
because the realization of our wills depends upon its success. 



308 THE SELF AND NATURE 

Such suffering is comparable to the sympathetic pains which 
we feel when we see another man in distress upon whose 
happiness our own depends. Once more, we suffer because 
we do not live unto ourselves alone, because of the inter- 
wovenness of our wills. Through sympathy every failure is 
multiplied; hence, here we find another great source of evil 
in the world, sprung from the same root of solidarity. 

There is, finally, another type of evil which can be traced 
to the same fact — I mean sin. Sin is another instance of 
failure due to the competition of purposes — a broader and 
sympathetic purpose, looking to the future and total in- 
terests of the individual, and including his relations to 
other individuals, vying with some narrower purpose, 
rooted usually in the animal self. The animal impulses 
are not in themselves sinful; in harmony with the more 
inclusive and subtle purposes, they are an indispensable 
element in the worth of life, feeding all the rest; and iso- 
lated, as in the animal or the savage, they may be low, 
but they are not evil. It is only when they are in conflict 
with other purposes that there is sin. The poignant peculi- 
arity of sin resides in this complexity and internality: the 
conflict is within, and the failure is due, not to the interfer- 
ence of an external purpose, but to an element of our own 
nature. We are unhappy because, despite the triumph of the 
lower self — which, in itself, would be a good, yielding in 
pleasure its reward — we still maintain our thwarted end 
and feel sympathetically the sorrow and disapproval of our 
fellows who take its side. Obviously, were it not for the 
intimate communion between parts of our own nature 



CONCLUSION 309 

and between individuals, there would be no sin and no 
remorse. 

An empirical metaphysic would be content to do what we 
think we have accomplished, to trace the root of evil in the 
conflict and solidarity of purposes. But theodicy goes be- 
yond and demands not only a ground, but a good. It is un- 
willing to accept evil as something inherent in the nature of 
reality and therefore not further explicable, but demands an 
explanation in terms of purpose. An attempt is made to 
prove that every type of evil not only may be, but actually is, 
a source of good. And that certain goods are conditioned by 
failure, there can be no doubt. First, there are the values of 
triumph and competition — the joys of striving against and 
proving oneself superior, distinction and cruelty, pride and 
scorn and the rest. Men little realize how large a share of 
their delights they owe to the existence of their enemies and 
inferiors. These values, of course, are not commonly em- 
phasized by moralists and apologists of the universe, yet, 
they are none the less a real compensation for evil, however 
distasteful to sensitive and high-minded natures. But 
second, failure makes possible a large share of the moral and 
aesthetic values — endurance, helpfulness and self-sacrifice, 
comedy and tragedy. Without suffering there could have 
been no Prometheus; without sin, no Christ; without either, 
no Aristophanes or Swift, no Shakespeare or Goethe. So 
much at least seems certain — there is no evil which does 
not offer an opportunity for some good. 

The Theist, as we have remarked, again goes further, 
asserting that this potential opportunity is always realized ; 



3IO THE SELF AND NATURE 

which, so far as the world of human life is concerned, is cer- 
tainly not true. It is not true that every individual wins 
strength or spiritual grace from sorrow and failure ; quite as 
often he is only crippled and embittered. Insanity and 
suicide are clear proofs that there are evils too hard for some 
to bear and profit by. And, even when the sphere of atone- 
ment is enlarged beyond the individual to include his fellow 
men, we have to admit that there are many evils which are 
not justified by the kindness, the remedial or scientific or 
aesthetic activities called forth because of them, in other 
men. They cannot help us in our unrecorded despairs, or 
create beauty out of the pains of the neurasthenic or the 
agonies of drowning men. 

Yet if we take in the larger environment of man, if we 
include nature which surrounds and supports us, may not 
even such evils as these be atoned for ? There may be super- 
human beings who triumph when we fail, who win something 
by our death, and from whose sight the agonies of drowning 
men are not hidden. We do not know what supreme tragic 
or comic poet there may not be watching our mortal suf- 
ferings and making of them verses with pity and fear. This 
is the hypothesis of Royce. In the life of the Absolute, of 
which we are parts, all evils are atoned for. He wins through 
our very losses, just as we win where we ourselves lose, 
whenever we resist temptation or weakness, or make some- 
thing of worth for knowledge or art or character out of our 
sins or failures. 

In our own interpretation of nature, we have surely en- 
larged the scope of the significance of human action, pro- 



CONCLUSION 3 1 1 

viding room for all sorts of values to be realized in nature 
through our sufferings and failures. Yet even if there were 
no evil in the life of any individual which was not atoned for 
in that of another, we could not be content. For, although 
we would not minimize the worth of such atonement even 
for the vanquished, realizing that we are able, through 
sympathy, to put ourselves in the place of the victor or 
spectator, even in defeat; nevertheless it is impossible 
wholly to get rid of the consciousness of the relativity of 
good and evil. Our values are too personal and our sympa- 
thies too democractic for us to view with complacence the 
sacrifice of one individual to another, especially without the 
knowledge and consent of the victim. We do not bear 
the same relation to one another that we bear to ourselves, 
or to nature as to our children or the state, with whose aims 
we have sympathy and understanding. However lofty be 
nature's aims — and we do not doubt that they are higher 
than our own; still, they are not ours. To consent to one's 
own defeat, in ignorance of the cause which triumphs, in- 
volves a self-abnegation more pusillanimous than noble. We 
are more high-minded if, remaining loyal to our purposes, we 
keep our protest, asking of nature that she adjust her aims 
to ours, or, if this is impossible, that she at least include 
ours in her own. Failing this, even if we no longer strive, 
we cannot greet the world as good. 

Royce, of course, with his view that nature is not a separ- 
ate individual or individuals, but a self which includes us 
as parts, might seem to provide a way out of the difficulties 
which we have been stressing. For, if his view were true, we 



312 THE SELF AND NATURE 

ourselves who fail would also triumph in the successes of the 
absolute. The will of the absolute that we die would be our 
own will, just as it is our own will which expresses itself both 
in an impulse which is suppressed and in the ideal which 
triumphs. But in our chapter on the unity of minds we have 
shown the unreasonableness of the premiss on which this 
doctrine rests, namely that various minds can unite to- 
gether in a more inclusive mind. And, empirically, there is 
no such tie as this between our minds and those of our fel- 
lows, or between our minds and those of nature. We are at 
once the sorrow and the endurance of sorrow, the regret and 
the bearing of regret, but we do not feel another's suffering 
as we do our own, nor do we feel the absolute's masterful 
joys. 

We conclude, therefore, that any attempt to find a reason 
for evil, in the sense of an inclusive good which should absorb 
and atone for it all, is doomed to failure. We can find the 
root of evil, but not the justification of it. We cannot elimi- 
nate the individuality of purposes or their incompatibility, 
which even sympathy cannot entirely overcome. The good, 
like the evil, is always from a point of view which is finite. 
We cannot call the whole world good, because there is no 
all-embracing will or purpose. And even were we able to 
renounce our own personal wills, and take a disinterested 
survey of the universe, we could not be content that some 
should suffer, in order that others might triumph. Our sense 
of justice requires that we distribute our sympathy; we 
cannot confine it to the few, no matter how exalted. Our 
democratic ideal of the good is incompatible with theodicy. 



CONCLUSION 313 

After registering our belief that philosophy cannot prove 
the ideas of immortality or theodicy, it is incumbent upon us 
to ask, first, what, in view of this, we shall think of the 
cosmos, and second, what we shall think of ourselves. It 
must be admitted that for him who has renounced these 
beliefs, a new world dawns. 

First, negatively, we cannot look upon the cosmos as cruel 
for not realizing these our wishes: the fate that destroys us 
is no wanton spirit reveling in our death. Whatever happens 
to us occurs, not for its own sake, but because otherwise 
some being not ourselves could not realize its destiny. Our 
death is necessary to the perfection of those forces which, 
destroying the form of the body, need its material for their 
own uses. We cannot blame them for seeking their own 
perfection or expect that they should renounce their own 
wills for ours. Surely we have no right to live superior to 
that of all other creatures. We may project an ideal of 
mutual accommodation whereby all may achieve success; 
but we do not know that any method could be devised to 
this end; and, short of this, it is surely better that in a free 
competition of purposes some should be realized rather than 
none. It would not be " good cosmic manners " to curse our 
competitors and be unwilling gracefully to fail and die. 

Again, in our view there is none of the sting of those 
theories which regard man as the sport of blind and inferior 
forces, which suppose that there is no reason for our failure 
and death. For, according to our animistic conception of 
nature, there are no such forces as these. The beings which 
feed upon our death are doubtless far higher than we are: 



314 THE SELF AND NATURE 

hence we cannot think it wholly unjust that they should exert 
control over our destiny. And with our view of individual 
responsibility, we cannot complain that they have fed us on 
illusions of immortality only to destroy us ; for the belief in 
survival, as we have seen, is only a natural, though illusory, 
development of our own instinct of self-preservation. 
Finally, we cannot doubt that nature has had regard for us. 
The actual existence of man on the earth, and the high de- 
velopment which he has attained there, are evidences that 
our parent nature which produced us has been kind to us, 
its offspring. Nature, we reiterate, has co-operated with us 
in our endeavors, adjusting its will to ours, so far as it 
could. We are indeed made to suffer and die, but our death 
and suffering are doubtless necessary. And, on the other 
hand, we are permitted to obtain a real, if mortal, happiness. 
I do not advocate any mood of quietism or resignation in 
our attitude towards nature; but only that some courtesy 
and self-limitation which we exercise towards those who 
have proved themselves superior in the attainment of any- 
thing which we ourselves have been seeking. We do not 
wish to arrogate everything to ourselves, nor do we feel hate 
or envy towards those who have succeeded where we have 
failed. Just as we are willing to forego something that other 
members of society may profit, so in our relations with the 
larger society which is the cosmos, we cannot complain 
because we are not given full scope to our desires. Yet, 
just as in society we deem it our right to live our own lives, 
so in the cosmos. We are willing to co-operate with all forces 
with which co-operation is possible; and even to limit our 



CONCLUSION 315 

happiness where that is necessary; but not passively to 
resign ourselves to a fate which we do not understand. We 
rightfully seek to control our own destiny, knowing that the 
control which we actually exert will be only so much as other 
beings, greater than we, find it compatible with their own 
ends to permit. 

After having lived some time away from the theistic 
position, one does not look back with regret upon it; or 
only with such regret, perhaps, as one remembers the child- 
hood that is outgrown. After measuring one's strength, 
without fear or favor, in the great world of conflicting aims 
seeking adjustment, the conception of man as the world's 
darling cared for by a benignant heavenly father, while 
appealing to old memories in moments of weakness, is too 
unreal and too little challenging to courage and adventure, 
to keep hold of the twentieth century man. One finally 
ceases to wish to live in that protected world. Reviewing the 
past century, as we who are far enough from it can do, we can 
understand, though we cannot share, its pessimism, as the 
result of a disillusion coming to sensitive spirits incapable of 
making a heroic adjustment to a new view of life. Our 
children, who will not have had the illusion, will be free also 
from the disappointment. And they will not be required to 
win that victory over self which has been our portion. 

Here our task as metaphysicians is ended. We have tried 
to exhibit the nature of the world in which we live ; we have 
shown the bearing of our doctrine upon certain old cherished 
conceptions; we have explained the attitude towards the 
world which commends itself to us in view of our theory. 



316 THE SELF AND NATURE 

There is one thing more which we might do. We might show 
how life can be justified despite mortality and the failure of 
theodicy. All the fundamental values of human existence 
remain intact. He surely has small hold upon the good who, 
despite sorrow and disappointment, does not find life worth 
while, just in thinking and loving, in laughing and creating, 
be it only for a brief period, followed by a sleep where no 
evil memories mock. But to enforce this conviction belongs 
to the moralist, not to the speculative philosopher. 



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